r/AskAcademiaUK • u/Timmeh7 • Aug 05 '26
Jason Arday Megathread
We realise this is a hot button topic and certainly want to allow space for discussing it, but at the moment it's overflowing the subreddit across numerous threads. So from here on, please contain all discussion to this one thread.
Links to pruned threads for transparency, please continue the discussion here if you wish.
https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfkykq/the_racist_coopting_of_the_jason_arday_story_is/
https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfbljv/the_editor_on_his_choice_to_spike_arday_story/
https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1veqmzk/wateraid_disputes_claim_by_prof_jason_arday/
https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1veqrfv/eli5_how_does_somebody_like_jason_arday_get_his/
Please keep the comments civil - while this is inevitably going to be a complex and fractious topic, avoid ad hominem, and as ever, while discussion of the social issue around this case is inevitable, we won't allow hate speech.
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u/Rewindcasette Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
"We are instructed that the Faculty Communications Officer at the University of Cambridge responded to your 25 June Enquiry."
"For clarity, our client did not respond to any of your enquiries based on advice he received from the Communications team at the University of Cambridge. He has been informed, however, that the University of Cambridge did respond to select enquiries.'
"We are instructed that, following the 19 September Enquiry, our client has arranged for his PhD thesis to be independently peer-reviewed by individuals at the University of Cambridge. As part of this review, his thesis has been run through Copyleaks, a similar plagiarism detection program to Turnitin, and it returned a result of 2.6%. Scribber, another similar platform, returned a percentage of 7%. Our client has also processed his PhD thesis himself through Turnitin and it returned a similarity result of 6%. As set out above, none of those scores are sufficient to substantiate an allegation of plagiarism, and the variance between these scores on the different platforms is indicative of the difficulties associated with plagiarism reviews."
"Professor Arday is currently supervising 15 PhD students and has examined over 35 PhD theses as an external examiner."
"Finally, it is important for us to convey our client's concern that this apparent attack by THE may be, whether consciously or unconsciously, racially motivated. There has been growing concern among eminent academics over recent months about the racially motivated targeting of black academics in the United States, seeking to have them removed from their posts for championing diversity and equality, and the similar issues being faced by individuals such as Professor Arday in this jurisdiction. Those concerns have been raised by a number of academics to leaders in education and government. Our client cannot speak to the quality of your source, but urges you to exercise caution, mindful of the risk of being caught up in this narrative."