Professor Jason Arday - plagiarism etc

It’s funny but also exposes the apparent blindness of institutions who want to bend over backwards to be seen to be inclusive, right-on, trendy or whatever.
But in an earlier thread on dodgy CVs, politicians and inflated egos we asked how on earth these people think they can get away with it when facts are so easily checked.
And that said, why the heck dont those in charge check their claims. The tempting answer is that they don’t want to know because an appointee or candidate ticks all the other boxes.
This guy has made a laughing stock of his university employers and most of all himself - but also the rest of us for trusting them.

Apparently it wasn't plagiarism, was just a few simple mistakes, dozens of them, actually. But annotation and referencing are fiddly and time consuming, and he had far more important things to do than obey academic conventions.

Significant parts of his PhD thesis appear to have been copied verbatim from another researcher, Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, who wrote a PhD thesis on the same topic several years earlier.
He also appears to be playing the “race card”
When LJMU investigated the case, Arday did not dispute the specific allegations of plagiarism but said the misconduct panel should consider the political context of a “war on critical race theory” and the weaponisation of plagiarism allegations against black researchers
What?
His other fraudulent claims like being part of the 7 Up TV programmes, despite not being born when the first were made, and marathon running, fund raising etc have similarly been debunked.
The Times yesterday
He has also been accused of lying about or exaggerating parts of his life, including claims to have run 600 miles in six days, and raising more than £5 million for charity
He denied fabricating stories about marathon running and raising millions for charity, although he conceded he was part of a fundraising “syndicate” rather than doing it all himself, and that he had run 600 miles in 12 days, not six. Arday told The Times: “I accept responsibility that I could have been really, really explicit” in correcting that narrative. claims to have run 600 miles in six days, and raising more than £5 million for charity.
Anybody reminded of Zack Polanski?
What a plonker!

MawsRosie he is definitely a plonker and then some.

I'm afraid this sort of behaviour is not uncommon. It's just rare for it to be reported in the media, especially as much as this has been.

There’s even more of his fantasy tales in the news today. He claimed in a podcast that his Mother had 5 degrees and that was whilst bringing up three children, one of whom was severely autistic and needed 24/7 care!

These people get away with it for so long because their stories are so fantastical that others think they must be true and so it continues.

I am disappointed and shocked that a top Uni could believe him.

Vintagewhine

I'm afraid this sort of behaviour is not uncommon. It's just rare for it to be reported in the media, especially as much as this has been.

Not at all. There have been countless reports about these characters. There was the unqualified “psychiatrist” who worked for decades in the NHS. There have been nurses and doctors unmasked and reported on. There was a very high ranking Police Chief who wore medals he was not entitled to at a Remembrance Ceremony and lost his job as a result.
That’s just off the top of my head in a couple of minutes.

We had an elderly man in our area who claimed his wife and daughter were killed in a terrible accident many years ago. Lies. He also made up a story about his experience at Hiroshima. More Lies. He also wore war medals that he was not entitled to and that’s how he got unmasked. That made the regional newspapers and then the nationals.

DS is a professor. He has managed it all without feeling any need to lie or fake any part of his story.

What I do not understand is why no one in his subject and the Faculty he was appointed to had not known him and his academic record and other activities going back decades.

DS is recognised expert in his field, he has a steady publication record in peer-reviewed journals going back decades. He is part of country-wide, if not international, circle of scholars in his field, who have known each other for a long time. If he claimed credit for something he had not done, work or personal, it would be common knowledge.

I cannot understand why the faculty at Cambridge, did not already know that this man was making unsubstantiated claims before the question of his appointment ever arose.

On the other hand stories like this do add to the gaiety of nations, when the news is otherwise so grim. we need the light relief.

Vintagewhine

I'm afraid this sort of behaviour is not uncommon. It's just rare for it to be reported in the media, especially as much as this has been.

I actually take issue with that statement. The guy is a Cambridge professor & I don't think you'd find another who has grossly exaggerated his fund-raising, fabricated some of his tales of racial harassment (or equivalent fabrication) and got his position relying on a plagiarised thesis.

What I do not understand is why no one in his subject and the Faculty he was appointed to had not known him and his academic record and other activities going back decades
What M0nica says, but I wonder to what extent nobody checked because it might have revealed an inconvenient truth. A bit like Starmer not asking the relevant questions about Peter Mandelson.
At a more disturbing level (2 tier policing?) an investigative journalist who did start asking questions was warned off by the police on the grounds of Arday’s “mental health”
Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education (THE), was accused of harassment after he emailed a series of questions to Prof Jason Arday about his academic record. Mr Grove said officers told him to stop contacting the professor because his “mental health” had been affected by the questions
Prof Arday also hired the law firm Carter-Ruck, which suggested in a letter to THE that its “apparent attack” on him “may be... racially motivated”
The Metropolitan Police spent four months looking into the claim of harassment before deciding in February to close the case.

He is referred to as the 'Poster -boy Professor' and I have no doubt that there were those who did raise concerns about his astonishing rise in Academia but were talked down because of threats of being accused of racism, which Jason Arday has now claimed.

It all leaves a general feeling of uneasiness.

All very concerning how easily he has manipulated the system over the years. Sadly this is prevalent across the NHS andmany parts of the public sector. People who are in roles (and protected) because of their identity, not because of their ability.

Such a fantasist! He claims he was mute until eleven and had a brain tumour. Ye gods. Surely easy to check background school and health records? But ‘they’ don’t want to, do they? It doesn’t fit the narrative. Cambridge University are saying nothing (yet) but it can’t hold out much longer.

It is rare especially in Russell Group universities. It should have been peer reviewed at the very least never mind by his PhD supervisor.

No excuse - egg on face of those passing the PHD - unless he has falsely published his own version of it without that process. There is no excuse, whatever the content is.

Like Monica, DS is a professor in a Russell group uni and it is absolutely extraordinary for this to happen in this context. And shameful.

I recall that story Primrose the "war hero".

All about self glorification and basically inadequacy inside.

Two University’s have come out and said he was never a visiting professor (Glasgow and Ohio)

The Good Law Project is supporting him.

On that case, imo, the Male Ego at work.

From the New York Post
He insists he’s a victim of racism and insufficient DEI — as the BBC notes: “Arday did not dispute the allegations of plagiarism, but defended himself by arguing that he had not received adequate supervision during his PhD given his autism and learning disabilities .”
Even the left-wing (sic) Guardian newspaper found Arday a mite less than truthful, when he claimed a campaign to get him fired from Cambridge included a man threatening him with a knife (the school’s video system showed no man and no knife) and a severed pig’s head sent anonymously to his parents (London butchers and police had no records to support Arday’s claim)

When the paper asked Arday about his tale after trying to fact-check it, he said, “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me “
The trouble is, too many in the media and academia have been believing Arday all along

Says it all

I am not so bothered by the peer review stuff.
Easy enough to have gone a bit overboard in that.

It is the rest of it that bothers me.
He must have been raising alarm bells with some[either at work or at home] for decades.
Seems like so many people kept quiet.
Or were shut up. One way or another.

The bloke in the O/P seems to have some narcissistic tendencies if you ask me.

The Good Law Project is supporting him

Another alarm bell now.
It apparently had 10,000 signatures!

There are going to be so many people with egg on their faces.

I mean, look at what Trump claims and the reality!

I can’t help thinking he’d have been quickly rumbled in a blue collar factory environment where spades are called spades and common sense rules. Irritatingly smug little twerp. Enjoyed being bathed in the adoration of the intelligentsia as their ‘poster boy’ for DEI. Such tosh. Cambridge has egg on its face well deserved too. 😮

Well they need the egg. Professional Conduct issues come with responsibility.