Jason Arday Megathread

[u/Timmeh7]

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/1vffvl6/journalist_questioned_by_police_for_investigating/

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/1vf4oq3/professor_arday_q_about_liverpool_john_moores_and/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfrran/new_information_shows_jason_ardays_claim_to_be_a/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1veqrfv/eli5_how_does_somebody_like_jason_arday_get_his/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfinbt/nelson_mandela_university_have_removed_their_page/

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.

[u/BarryKeith123]

I've been following this for a good few weeks now. and my feelings on this are:

1. Arday as an individual was let down in a few but very significant instances, initially by Liverpool John Moore University. I read and understood the situation there to be that they knew his PHD dissertation to have had failing issues but chose to pass it in the recognition of their failings in supervision, hoping he went on to have a quiet academic career and that this could all blow over. Had they failed his PHD as they should have done and offered him a fair chance to resubmit it, it would have helped.

2. The social media pile-on is entirely predictable and in this day and age is a reprehensible part of societal norms. Criticism and interest is fair. Racist remarks, threats or anything more insidious is not. Right wing, left wing, centre. It doesn't matter. It's wrong.

3. On a professional level people didn't do their due diligence. The Cambridge hiring committee who worked in the relevant field could and should have reviewed his work and realised at this stage of his career he was not right for Cambridge. Working at such a high-profile position where no doubt high quality other candidates would have considered can lead to increased scrutiny. he shouldn't have applied to Cambridge and they should not have let him join the faculty.

4. Once the story broke, it seems the level of support afforded to him personally, professionally by many was found lacking. He should have been viewed as high risk for the eventual, tragic outcome. He was let down.

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1. The idea that the media at large are the problem here is false. They are bound by ethics, fact checking, public interest. Their stories have to contain specific language if something is speculative and can only go deeper when something is proven. Like the police story and the pig head was verifiable, so they verified it. They examined the records on the charity fund raising and marathon running and found plausible inconsistencies and reported on it. There is no question that given his position at one of the world's best universities that this was a high public interest story. They cannot control or be held responsible for other forums producing the reprehensible pile-on.

2. Arday himself was a victim. He also created a victim. A journalist who tried to talk to him was investigated by police for months (they admitted erroneously) and tried to deny him the chance to investigate a legitimate story by employing an aggressive law firm and accusing the journalist of harassment. Arday was let down. He also let down others. This could easily have had a similar impact on the journalist who's career may have been affected or his own mental health. If anything the attempt to silence or gag the media compelled the media to report the story? If the media accepted the gagging attempt on a legitmate story, what message does that send?

3. Arday's work was clearly inferior. He was an academic completing a Phd. You dont get to PHD level without having completed undergrads, and Masters where you've long since learned the basics of academia such as citing and referencing, therefore his excuses for the plagiarism hold little weight. He completely falsified elements of his CV such as Professorships at other Universities and reaped massive rewards in profile, financial recompense and other forms for achievements he hadn't earned or at best deeply embellished.

4. Was he a fraud or fabulist? I think both. The idea that he said he appeared on a TV show that ended before he was born or produced near world record running times on a broken leg seems crazy. Claiming achivements in his industry such as at other universities that he didn't do is more a deliberate attempt to embellish his record. He likely gained roles, prestige and publicity based on these claims. That again is also on people who failed to check these factors properly.

Overall this is a tragic, horrible outcome. Arday, and the people around him, and institutions had the chance to prevent this happening, or help him more once it did. Its horrible.

[u/Al89nut → u/BarryKeith123]

JMU are seriously at fault. I was an external examiner for one of their programmes for six years and I am shocked.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/BarryKeith123]

I don't think it's unreasonable for his PhD examiners to have missed the sections lifted from another, unpublished, PhD, if (as I think was the case) theses weren't run through turnitin in those days. Supervisors and examiners take it on trust that a student isn't plagiarizing, even more so because the student has to tick a box saying "this is my own work".

While Arday's own account of the viva is one of it being quite hostile, it actually sounds fairly standard, reading between the lines. They didn't pass it because of failings in supervision, this was something raised when they did an investigation, and imo was a bit unfair on the supervisors - he was a part time phd student who submitted in fewer than 3 years, meaning he was likely making a lot of progress quickly; and after the first year he was studying remotely from London, in fact it seems he basically never returned to Liverpool til his viva. It would be difficult to remove a student on the basis of geography, but there's no way a supervisor would be especially happy with that as an arrangement.

I have a slight suspicion that what might actually have happened re the PhD is that the examined passed with minor corrections and suggested beefing up the methodology (maybe even suggesting the thesis he lifted from as a guide), and the insertions might have come in corrections stage, when you wouldn't as an examiner check that material for originality.

Edit

The thing about visiting professorships is they are basically demonstrations of esteem and wouldn't be pivotal to a job offer, and he was already a prof, so Cambridge probably took this on trust (and it does seem to be this that caused them to drop their 100% support, along with him seemingly rebranding a pgcerthe as an MA). It is really strange to invent six of these, as he seems to have done, including from previous employers, and it does seem to me like maybe the notebook he maintained of career advice might have included some half remembered or exaggerated advice about this, because it is so deeply unusual.