Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring

When Cambridge University interviewed Jason Arday for one of the most prestigious sociology positions in the world, he was an early career scholar and underqualified, by the school’s own standards.

Cambridge’s requirements, reviewed by The New York Times, called for “an outstanding research record of international stature” and a “proven successful track record” supervising Ph.D. students. Dr. Arday had a modest publication record and had bounced from one university to the next — not staying long enough to oversee a full three-year-or-more doctorate.

Cambridge hired him anyway in 2023, making him, at 37, the university’s youngest Black professor at a time when the school was under pressure to diversify. In doing so, Cambridge thrust him into the international limelight, giving him a platform at one of the world’s elite universities to champion academic diversity and making him a target for critics.

Dr. Arday was found dead in London on Friday, days after resigning from his job amid accusations that he had plagiarized chunks of his papers, embellished parts of his recently published memoir and fabricated aspects of his life story. {snip}

In his Aug. 5 resignation letter, he wrote, “I no longer wish to feel as though I am living under a constant spotlight, where every aspect of my life is subject to public examination and judgment.” He added, “This is not the end of my work. It is simply the end of this chapter.”

His family said that, since starting at Cambridge, Dr. Arday had faced a campaign of scrutiny intended to undermine him. That became too much for him, they said.

Questions about Dr. Arday’s career are unlikely to end with his death, however, because they were as much about Cambridge as they were about him. The centuries-old alma mater of Isaac Newton, William Wordsworth and kings and queens, Cambridge now faces deep scrutiny about its decision-making, even from its own faculty.

{snip}

If, in hindsight, elements of Dr. Arday’s story seemed too good to be true, Cambridge ignored repeated warning signs. A review of internal Cambridge documents and interviews with former colleagues and associates shows that, in addition to passing over more experienced candidates for the job, administrators gushed publicly about Dr. Arday’s scholarship and privately disregarded complaints about his work. They declined to investigate plagiarism concerns and accused his critics of a “vile campaign” to discredit him.

Dr. Arday’s claims about not speaking were false, a former classmate and a speech professional who worked with him told The New York Times. His supposedly remarkable trajectory from nonverbal preteen to Ph.D. had no precedent in medical literature, experts in developmental and speech delays say. That should have set off alarm bells for the Cambridge hiring committee, which included a child psychiatrist who had done research on autism, experts said.

{snip}

Cambridge said on Friday that it was “desperately saddened” to hear of Dr. Arday’s death. An administrator, in a letter to the faculty on Tuesday, called the misconduct accusations “an aberration” and “troubling.” A spokesman separately declined to answer a list of questions about his hiring and his time there, citing a planned independent investigation — a difficult inquiry that will likely be made even more uncomfortable following Dr. Arday’s death.

{snip}

When a scholar from another university questioned his work, Dr. Arday turned the tables and filed a racism complaint with the other school, according to someone with direct knowledge of the complaint. That person, like some others who spoke to The Times, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being dragged publicly into the controversy.

Dr. Arday never squarely addressed the questions of plagiarism and fabrication.

{snip}