Late professor Jason Arday/Image: St Mary’s University
Cambridge appointed Arday as a professor in 2022 when he was 37 and promoted him as its youngest Black professor. He had said he could not speak until the age of 11 and could not read until 18. The University of Cambridge has narrowed its inquiry into the hiring of professor Jason Arday following his death last month, with the review now focusing on whether he received adequate support from the university, NYT reported.
Nazir Afzal, the former prosecutor appointed to lead the main review, said the inquiry would instead examine Arday’s welfare, care and the support available to him. “It’s not about the allegations made against Professor Arday or about his academic record,” Afzal said. Afzal, who is also chancellor of the University of Manchester, said the inquiry would go “deep on a narrow question rather than broad on all of them”. Arday’s family said he had faced an intense online campaign, describing it as a “campaign of misinformation” that had become too much for him.
“It’s about his welfare, his care, his well-being. His claims later became part of scrutiny surrounding his biography.
Cambridge had announced a broader investigation earlier this summer into Arday’s appointment after allegations emerged that he plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis and embellished aspects of his personal history.
A faculty letter issued before Arday’s death criticised administrators for “crafting a media narrative focusing on his youth, his race, and his transformative potential”. Some faculty members have also criticised Cambridge’s handling of the case before his death, including Prentice’s description of it as an “aberration” in a letter to staff. Those allegations, along with questions about his academic record, are now outside the main investigation’s scope. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
The shift comes after Vice Chancellor Deborah Prentice had promised a “thorough and transparent” investigation into Arday’s appointment. Some professors are circulating a letter calling for a full examination of Arday’s appointment and the university’s role in promoting his personal story, according to a draft seen by NYT. Arday could still be mentioned in a separate review examining Cambridge’s wider hiring and academic misconduct policies, but that inquiry will not focus on his case. A separate expert panel will examine the wider context of Arday’s time at Cambridge, including policies governing hiring and academic misconduct and the support provided to academics facing intense public and media scrutiny. The decision has divided Cambridge faculty.