The Jason Arday Affair and the probing of academia

The recent furore centred on the late Jason Arday has brought into focus the question of whether what is termed EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) policies are consistent with fundamental ideas about meritocracy and fairness. A strict definition of what EDI entails negates the proposition that such policies inherently equate to anti-white discrimination and the compromising of standards. However, allegations that Arday, appointed with much fanfare as Cambridge University’s youngest ever black professor, had plagiarised parts of his doctorate thesis alongside claims about the value and scholarship of his papers and teaching competence have served to create an atmosphere designed to render suspect the credentials of black academics. This was the objective of the race realist network behind Nathan Cofnas who served as the “whistleblower” whose evidence would take Arday down. But if an academic deserves to be scrutinised, such scrutiny should not be conducted in the form of trial by media. Arday should have been examined by the same standard procedures afforded to other academics who have been accused of plagiarism and even of financial impropriety. Further, a probe of the university sector ought not to be delimited to the alleged perversion of the objectives of EDI but should encompass a range of issues including those related to questions of propriety in hiring faculty, as well as in financial management. Lessons must be absorbed from the apparent flaws in Cambridge’s procedures in investigating misconduct and the manipulation of the media by an organised group of people who were bent on waging a malicious campaign against a neuro-divergent individual.

Consider for instance the case of Dr. William O'Reilly, an associate professor of modern history at Cambridge. In 2018 an article was published in his name in the Journal of Austrian-American History. However, it was later discovered in 2021 that his article contained large segments of two essays that had been copied from one of his undergraduate students. The former student made a complaint to the university showing that more than 12 pages of O’Reilly’s journal submission were wholesale reproductions from his undergraduate papers.

The investigating panel was left with no choice but to uphold the complaint.

It is important to note that the university’s disciplinary guidelines consider plagiarism to be a form of “serious or gross misconduct” which will “normally merit dismissal”. O’Reilly faced a disciplinary tribunal which accepted the charge of plagiarism but after two-years of investigating and deliberating ruled that this had been “the product of negligent acts but was not deliberate”. 

O’Reilly kept his job.

Consider also the story about Professor George Holmes, the university vice-chancellor who was dismissed for financial corruption involving over £1 million and other misconduct. Holmes had been suspended in 2025 following allegations raised in The Mill, a Manchester-based investigative news outlet. Arrests followed in relation to allegations of fraud, money laundering and bribery.

Both cases involving O'Reilly and Holmes did not bring anywhere near the level of scrutiny put on Jason Arday. In the period between late July and early August after an article written by Nathan Cofnas at his substack page, almost 200 articles were written about a miscellany of allegations against Arday. These included those published by broadsheets such as the Guardian, the Times and the Telegraph.

The argument that Arday's case contained elements of Baron Munchausen Syndrome or that he was a "Walter Mitty"-type character does not justify the aggravated level of scrutiny heaped on him by the British media. By way of contrast, William O’Reilly also had unflattering allegations made about him outside of his confirmed plagiarism. Student journalists of Varsity, the oldest of Cambridge University’s main student newspapers, who decided to follow up on the university’s upholding of the complaint of plagiarism in 2023, claimed that they were threatened with legal action by O’Reilly. Earlier in 2020, Varsity reported on O’Reilly overseeing a disciplinary process involving a male student accused of rape and sexual assault. This despite the claim that O’Reilly had a “close relationship” with the accused student and that O’Reilly himself had been accused of sexual assault by a student. O’Reilly denied the allegations and no action was taken by the police.

This media blitz only served to stimulate the level of opprobrium directed on Arday by racial identitarians who are convinced -and seek to convince others- that blacks in positions in academia, including Oxbridge have only obtained their jobs without merit. This was of course the aim of Cofnas and his “race realism” backers who favour a return to the biological racism of the 19^th century, as well as the rehabilitation of eugenics as a field of study and an essential factor in the formulation of social policy.

It is possible that the Jason Arday affair is being used by certain interest groups and some sections of the media as a route towards the shaping public sentiment to favour a probe of the university sector. There would be nothing new about investigating key institutions designed to serve the public.

The policing sector for instance, has periodically been subjected to both formal and press scrutiny over concerns such as bribery and other corrupt practices. The police were also subject to scrutiny after the handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence which culminated in the Macpherson report declaring the London Metropolitan Police as “institutionally racist”.

Yet, while a probe of universities concerning the unfair hiring of minorities is conceivable, the idea of limiting this to the employment of minorities would not be sound given the circumstances surrounding the likes of Dr. O’Reilly and Professor Holmes.

An objective investigation or series of investigations into the university sector would need to encompass issues related to undisclosed plagiarism and financial impropriety alongside biased practices pertaining to the appointment and promotion of staff.*

And those who believe in the message orchestrated the instigators of the campaign to destroy Arday will be almost certainly disappointed to discover the falsity that Black representation in British academia is down to biased hiring. This supposition is quite ironic given that many have complained of disadvantages linked to obtaining appointments, getting promotion, and receiving funding for PhDs from research councils.

While there is truth to the perception that the majority of British academics are left leaning in views on politics and social policy, this does not mean that conservative and right-wing ideologies are totally shut out. James Orr, an Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity, is an example of the right-wing presence in academia.  

Orr, until recently the Head of Policy of the Reform Party from which he was suspended for allegedly discussing ways of obtaining foreign funding, was already revealed to have been part of such a network. The aim it appears was according to the independent media outlet the Byline Times to “bring students into a hard-right, theocratic political project.”

Orr’s appointment was claimed to have been accompanied by a clandestine donation by Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantier, who has links to figures involved in the propagation of “race realism” and the politics of the “dark enlightenment”, the anti-democratic political concept posited by Curtis Yarvin.

His academic career at Cambridge has been sullied by accusations of neglecting his contractual obligations due to his commitments with the Reform Party. There appear to be instances in which complaints have been made been made about his conduct which have not been acted on and he has had a grievance against him for academic negligence and misconduct partially upheld. Moreover, the evidence thus far appears to reveal a morally compromised man who while teaching ethics was willing to circumvent electoral law.

The Arday affair with its frenzied press attention and breathless social media commentary presents an unfortunate case study of background orchestration and partisan evaluation before all the facts have been rationally assessed. Cambridge in their attempt to provide a fairy tale story of a black man who overcame a socially disadvantageous background and a disability appear to have failed in exercising their due diligence prior to appointing Arday. There also appear to have been flaws in the way they have dealt with complaints against O’Reilly and Orr.

The priority must be for Cambridge to put its house in order and for the mainstream media to acknowledge their role in the sensationalist campaign against Arday which was prompted by a network composed of elements dedicated to projects related to scientific racism and eugenics.

* Putting aside the question of plagiarism, these issues will become increasingly relevant as the sector grapples with present and future challenges. These include the many English universities whose indebtedness threaten them with insolvency, and the demographic trend of declining numbers of teenagers within the population. The consequence of this phenomenon is already being felt in the United States and there is an increasing awareness that Britain’s “enrolment cliff” is fast approaching.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2026).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.