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When the superstar academic Jason Arday took to the stage at the British Sociological Associationâs 75th anniversary conference earlier this year, he delivered a talk called Wanted Dead or Alive: the Playbook.
The youngest black professor in Cambridge Universityâs history told an audience of his peers that the playbook in question had helped bring down some of the biggest names in US academia. Conservative âactivistsâ were trawling through the work of black academics, looking for anything to use against them: inconsistencies, citation errors, passages in their work that were similar to existing papers.
Once an error was identified, rightwing media outlets and conservative politicians joined the pile-on â heaping pressure on universities to cut ties.
Claudine Gay, the first black woman to become president of Harvard, was only in the post for seven months before she was forced out over plagiarism allegations. Others said they felt like âsitting ducksâ as their work was pulled apart. Some senior black figures have killed themselves after persistent questioning of their work or qualifications.
The playbook was not restricted to the US, Arday explained. The same tactics were being used to bring down some of the UKâs most high-profile black academics.
âThe instruments that are designed to protect academic integrity, designed to protect our wellbeing and our intellectual property, are weaponised,â he told the audience in April.
He called for his peers to defend him. âThere isnât any room to sit there and watch your fellows suffer for no reason. Itâs abhorrent, itâs a disgrace and, quite frankly, evil,â he added. âThatâs the cancer that we need to eradicate from academia.â
Some of the audience thought it was strange. Keynotes are usually places where academics talk about their work and discuss breakthroughs, yet here was Arday talking about racism and harassment. Some felt he must have been saying this for a reason.
Then last week a row erupted concerning Ardayâs academic work. The Telegraph reported that analysis had found more than 100 passages in his PhD were similar to another thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a student at Brunel University in London, published six years earlier.
The report followed a Substack post by Nathan Cofnas, an academic who was previously embroiled in a free speech row at Cambridge after he suggested in a blogpost that, in a meritocracy, there would be âclose to zeroâ black professors at Harvard. The British politician and activist Simon Woolley called the post âabhorrent racism, masquerading as pseudo-intellectâ.
Cofnas, a self-defined ârace realistâ, was sacked by Cambridgeâs Emmanuel College in 2024 and underwent a disciplinary investigation into the blogpost about black academics. The investigation concluded that Cofnas was not guilty of âdiscrimination or harassmentâ, and that his views, âwhile seen by many as offensive, did not breach the law and did not contravene university regulations designed to uphold free speechâ. He now works at Ghent University, in Belgium.
Cofnas claimed he had put Ardayâs PhD through plagiarism detection software, which found that âmany passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original sourceâ.
Another critic of Arday was Dr David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, in Devon, who had previously written to Cambridge with claims about Ardayâs work.
Last year Harris, who in 2024 published a book about critical race theory (CRT), was stripped of his professor emeritus title following an administrative dispute. He was reinstated earlier this year but in the meantime learned his work had been deemed âcontroversialâ by the university. After Harrisâs earlier queries about Ardayâs work, two corrections were made to papers released in 2018 and another in 2020.
The fact that the two most vocal critics of Arday harboured controversial views on race or CRT appeared to inform Cambridgeâs response, which was a robust defence of Arday. The university called the claims a âvile smear campaign to undermine his credibilityâ.
An open letter in support of Arday, signed by the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, and the prominent black studies academic Kehinde Andrews, argued there was âan orchestrated and grim effort to delegitimise a brilliant, young, working-class academic for the sin of being successful while Blackâ.
Cambridge said it had passed complaints to the university where Arday completed the PhD, Liverpool John Moores, which had reviewed the work and found he had not plagiarised it.
âWe take allegations of academic misconduct incredibly seriously,â a Cambridge spokesperson said. âIt is university procedure that investigations are carried out by the institution at which the research was undertaken. This is standard practice in the sector because that institution has access to the information to ensure a full and fair investigation.â
Arday told the Guardian he fully supported âfair investigation processes for genuine concernsâ of academic misconduct. He added: âTo clarify, there have been multiple thorough investigations across several institutions as a result of the allegations, and immense scrutiny, including with an academic misconduct panel who concluded that there was no plagiarism or academic misconduct.â
But prominent academics of colour that the Guardian spoke to said the claims of plagiarism were legitimate, and that Ardayâs alleged actions risked undermining others who study race.
Some of Ardayâs peers said the fallout from the row could send shockwaves through academia and set the study of race in Britain back 20 years.
One academic, who has worked in the area of race and education for decades and spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, said the accusations against Arday were worrying. âI think itâs plagiarism and itâs obvious,â they said.
John Preston, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex, said: âHaving seen the evidence, it triangulates and there is, in my judgment, a case to answer here.â
Some have argued that Arday has come under unfair levels of scrutiny. But the academics the Guardian spoke to said it was âfair for someone at Cambridgeâ, in one of the most prestigious positions in academia.
The tone of the coverage from rightwing publications has been a mix of outrage and âI-told-you-soâ self-righteousness, with the Telegraph describing Arday as a âdiversity poster boyâ, and his online accusers all sharing a critical view of diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The stakes are high for all concerned. For Arday, the accusations are potentially ruinous â plagiarism is as serious as it gets for academic malpractice and the professor has consistently claimed he has done nothing wrong.
In an interview with the Times on Friday, he suggested the issue had been blown out of proportion. âI am accountable for the mistakes Iâve made,â he said. âI hold myself accountable and other people should hold me accountable. Weâre talking about academia here. I didnât murder somebody. I think the cruelty that Iâve experienced, and the positioning of me as this kind of liar and fantasist, is totally unacceptable.â
For Cambridge, there are questions about judgment over Ardayâs appointment, which occurred when its own track record on race was being scrutinised in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Cambridge had been criticised for the lack of diversity in its student body and faculty; when Arday was hired, there were only five black professors at the university.
But the accusations of plagiarism are only one element of the Arday story.
In March 2023, the sociologistâs arrival at Cambridge made headlines around the world. Not only was he the youngest black professor in the universityâs history, but his backstory made that feat all the more impressive. His story is to be detailed in a memoir for Simon & Schuster this autumn.
At the age of three, the south Londoner was diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay. He was unable to speak until he was 11 and could not read or write until 18. Despite that, he forged an impressive academic career, mostly focusing on race and education, with stints at Roehampton, Glasgow and Durham universities.
From 17, Arday began completing charity challenges to raise money for various causes. They were often endurance challenges, which began when he was taking a BTec course in sport and development at Merton college in Morden, south London.
He has claimed in media interviews to have raised £5m for charities over a 20-year period (sometimes this figure has risen to £5.5m). He has done this, he says, by running 30 marathons in 35 days â a feat he has spoken about in media interviews and in his book. He also claimed at public events to have run 600 miles in six days.
As his critics online have pointed out, £5m raised for charity would be a staggering amount for someone who is not already famous. In 2012, Arday said he hoped to raise £250,000 by the time he was 50.
When asked if the £5m figure was accurate, Arday clarified to the Guardian that the money was raised with the help of âmany fundraising collectives over a two-decade periodâ. When asked to identify other people who took part in these efforts, Arday said he had signed NDAs preventing him from disclosing that information.
The Guardian also asked Arday about his claim to have run 600 miles in six days, an achievement that would make him one of the worldâs most gifted endurance runners. (The first woman to achieve the feat, Megan Eckert, only managed it last year; the menâs record is 650 miles.) He said that because of the âcumulative wear and tear of trainingâ from his previous running challenges he âhad to put rest days in between the running days just to finishâ the 600-mile challenge, which was actually completed over a 12-day period.
Earlier this year, two universities that had given Arday honorary degrees and doctorates amended their websites, with Southampton Solent University removing the 600 miles citation, and Anglia Ruskin University changing the six days claim to 12 days.
In 2012, Arday was a torchbearer for the Olympic Games and met the tennis player Andy Murray via the TV programme Surprise, Surprise.
After the meeting, Murray said Arday had told him a story that inspired him ahead of his clash with Novak Djokovic at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in 2012. âHe is an epileptic who ran 30 marathons in 35 days,â said Murray. âHe told me that on the 20th day he fell â he had a fit, a seizure â and had a hairline fracture in his leg, but he continued. He had asked to meet me, and that was pretty cool, speaking to someone like that.â
When asked by reporters at the time why he carried on, Arday said: âWhen I fell over, I didnât want to have to pay back thousands of pounds.â
Doctors have told the Guardian that running nine marathons with a hairline fracture in a fibula would be incredibly painful, though technically not impossible. In his forthcoming memoir, Arday says he completed the distance by taking painkillers and despite his right leg swelling to twice its normal size. He previously said in a 2012 interview that he used ice baths to ease the pain between his runs.
As well as scrutiny of his academic record and fundraising history, Arday claims to have been the victim of a campaign of physical abuse and intimidation.
Arday began being sent racist emails as soon as he took up his position at Cambridge, becoming so intense that his emails had to be screened. But the messages paled in comparison to the other incidents the academic said he had faced.
In an open letter to the government minister Jacqui Smith in July 2025, which outlined Ardayâs experiences, he claimed to have been âthreatened with a knife, physically assaulted and spat on; [had] rape and death threats being made to him and his family; bananas and bullets being posted to him via the university campus; and corrosive substances and mutilated animals sent to his family homeâ.
In a subsequent interview with the Guardian, Arday claimed to have been confronted at his faculty building on two separate occasions by a masked man threatening to harm him if he did not resign, and evading detection both times. On the second occasion Arday said the intruder produced a knife and threatened him with it.
The Guardian understands that after Arday reported the first intrusion to the university, enhanced CCTV was placed in the faculty and a panic alarm was installed in his office. The professor said he hit the panic alarm during the second confrontation, but that no one responded. It should have triggered an alarm alerting the facultyâs security team, all of whom were present at the time of the alleged incident.
The intruder was not picked up by CCTV on either occasion and no one in the faculty reported seeing anyone suspicious. Arday did not report either intrusion at the time, telling the Guardian that after the second incident he continued his working day and even conducted a PhD viva for a student less than two hours later.
He did not inform colleagues that a masked man with a knife was in the faculty building.
Arday confirmed in an interview with the Guardian that the âmutilated animals sent to his family homeâ mentioned in the open letter was a severed pigâs head, delivered in a large cardboard box to his parentsâ home address in south London. He claimed to have intercepted the package and immediately thrown it away, only telling the police several months later.
In a subsequent interview he claimed the police investigated, checking with butchers in south London if they had sold a pig, eventually finding one that had sold a âwhole hogâ on the morning the head was left outside the family home.
When the Guardian checked those details with the local butchers Arday named, they said no police officer had come in to ask them about a pig. When asked if they were sure, the butcher said âthatâs the kind of thing weâd rememberâ.
When the details Arday gave about the pigâs head investigation were checked by Londonâs Metropolitan police, the Guardian was told they were âcategoricallyâ incorrect and no investigation had taken place.
Arday had contacted the Met to lodge a complaint of harassment against Harris after his plagiarism allegations and, because he was based in Plymouth, the case was handed over to Devon and Cornwall police. Correspondence seen by the Guardian confirmed that the force declined to pursue a case against Harris.
Arday took no photographs of the bullet, the banana, the corrosive substance or the pigâs head. The only other people who saw any of the items were close family members, who told the Guardian Arday had shown them the bullet and the âpoisonâ. Arday could produce no messages from the time in which he discussed any of the items with friends, family, colleagues or the police.
A Cambridge University spokesperson said: âAs soon as Professor Arday shared concerns with the faculty a number of enhanced security measures were urgently taken in response, with the advice and continuing engagement of university security and the police. These include the installation of panic alarms, screening of emails, post and packages, upgraded CCTV and revised security protocols.â
There are many examples of prominent black figures being intimidated in recent British history.
Black footballers have faced decades of abuse, including Cyrille Regis, who was sent a bullet in the post after being selected for England. Bananas were often used by racists to insult black people. Severed pig heads have been attached to the walls of mosques by far-right groups. People have been attacked and intimidated at their place of work. Malicious communication is commonplace. Black academics are frequently hounded by organised groups.
But the abuse and harassment Arday has outlined would be some of the most extreme any academic has been subjected to in the UK.
When Arday was asked about his claims by the Guardian, he stood by them. âTo be honest with you, I thought youâd just believe me,â he said. âWhy would I lie?â He would be jeopardising his career.
In Ardayâs memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, he references the scrutiny placed on him and his work.
He writes that people have been âoutraged and offendedâ by the idea of a black professor at such an elite institution, and that he has faced harassment and persecution as âthe subject of targeted campaigns driven by racial animusâ.
âThere have been days when I can only describe the experience as traumatising. Itâs hard for people to even comprehend or imagine the toll this can take on a person,â he writes.
But the row over his academic work and some of the claims he has made is far bigger than one person.
âThe whole area of the sociology of education, and particularly race studies within that, is very fragile,â said Prof Preston. âIt is primarily Black, Asian and minoritised people who work and study in those subjects. Professor Arday probably holds the top position in the world in sociology of education. Itâs important for the whole discipline that he addresses these claims.â
In a recent interview to promote the memoir, Arday spoke about feeling like Icarus when he came under scrutiny after joining Cambridge. âI always wanted to be a person who flew close to the sun,â he said. âBut sometimes I wonder: did I fly too close?â
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