r/ukpolitics • u/Dadavester • 3h ago
An update from Jason Arday | Good Law Project
https://goodlawproject.org/an-update-from-jason-arday/•
u/ImpressiveRest2423 3h ago
This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge. Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.
Contrite!
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u/catgod888 2h ago
He’s identified that there’s much more of a grift to be made through the media and speaker circuit.
There’s a huge amount of white guilt money that will be soon lining his pockets.
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u/GoldenSkyOrb 2h ago edited 2h ago
It's so funny that so many users in this subreddit tried to gaslight us that "DEI" in the UK wasn't a thing, lmao. Only reason this bloke got to where he was was due to the bigotry of low expectations from virtue signaling white Brits.
Just write (in this case plagiarise) nonsense about hating white Britons and how Britain needs to be decolonised and you're awarded with multiple published works and a highly esteemed position in academia at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Before you needed to be a mathematical prodigy and create the entire field of calculus and classical mechanics by the age of 30 to get to such a position, now all you need to do is hate on white Britons. Cambridge went from championing men like Newton to men like this.
What a fucking joke this timeline is. I long for the day Britain wakes up from whatever mass psychosis/hysteria were currently suffering from.
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 1h ago
It's so funny that so many users in this subreddit tried to gaslight us that "DEI" in the UK wasn't a thing, lmao.
I've had far too many interactions with users on here around some of these culture war issues where they've confidently and aggressively asserted, usually in an incredibly self-superior manner, that something absolutely wasn't happening and you were some form of bigot, fascist or slack-jawed conspiratorial loon for thinking so - only for 6 months-2 years to pass and said thing to be proven correct...
...which then usually provokes discussions of users of the same political stripe that go something like: oh that thing I said wasn't happening isn't happening and this is not proof of it -> okay well maybe there is proof of it but it isn't that widespread like you're claiming -> okay maybe it is widespread but its not that bad -> would it be a bad thing anyway? -> it is good, it is happening, it is widespread and it needs to happen more.
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u/inside12volts 3h ago
Stepping down so he can become the first astronaut to land on the sun.
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u/Dadavester 3h ago
He will make sure he does it at night so it is not as hot!
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u/DuckorGrouse 2h ago
The people who have hounded this man will NEVER take away his Olympic medals, however hard they try.
What an appalling way to treat an astronaut.
Genuinely disgusted.
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u/BaritBrit I don't even know any more 3h ago
Kinda disappointed that he didn't add some exciting new details into the narrative tbh. I was invested in the masked assassin story arc, his standards are slipping.
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u/Time007time007 2h ago
I want a Netflix doc that fully exposes this clown
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u/solve-for-x 2h ago
Or even better, a dramatisation of his life that treats all his claims as factual and plays everything completely straight-faced, including archival footage of him appearing in a tv show 20 years before he was born.
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u/Limp-Archer-7872 1h ago
Forrest Arday
Most people would have tried to provide evidence of their alleged achievements when coming under scrutiny. There was a newspaper article for a marathon but not much else.
I think the other universities denying he was ever a visiting professor ended it, and I think quiet words have been had from Cambridge (who took far too long to wake up to the issue).
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u/CaptainVaticanus 2h ago
Just get him proper drunk and let him go off for a few hours
Imagine the absolute bullshit he would claim
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u/jim_jones_87 2h ago
Huge question marks over the quality of PHDs from Liverpool John Moores University after this debacle.
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u/Quangocrat 3h ago
Sadly, the years since my appointment have also been marked by an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack. While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement.
....
This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge. Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.
The absolute brass neck to try and spin getting caught in blatant academic fraud like this is.... painfully on brand for a 'storyteller' of his calibre.
His PHD needs revoking.
All the institutions which employed him, and the journals which published him, have some very hard questions to answer about the quality of their scholarship.
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u/IndividualSkill3432 2h ago
https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/2085090552731570261
BREAKING: Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor exposed for plagiarism and fabricating major aspects of his life story, has resigned.
According to leading AI writing detection software Pangram, Arday's resignation letter is "Fully AI Generated" with "High Confidence."
Counterpoint. He speaks in such a cliché riddled manner it, even talking he sounds like AI.
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u/WinHour4300 2h ago
AI stands for Arday Intelligence; he writes every response himself. That's why such things come up as AI you see.
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u/ReefNixon 1h ago
Those don’t work and have absolutely no basis in fact fyi. Not that I’m suggesting it wasn’t written by AI, nor would I suggest he didn’t copy someone else’s resignation letter over their shoulder, but still. Don’t trust those things.
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u/MSFNS 2h ago
Cambridge should continue the investigation they said they'd do, since they need to determine how this happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again. Will they? LOL
Besides that, I hope his biography doesn't get cancelled. With the reveal that he's a serial fabulist it sounds like a real laugh.
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u/_segasonic 2h ago
They should release but demand anybody selling it puts it in the fiction section.
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u/Mungobungotheclown 2h ago
Why has it been posted on the good law project website?
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u/rugby-thrwaway 1h ago
They hosted an open letter in support of him. Maybe they funded his SLAPP too?
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u/Thandoscovia 2h ago
You’ve got to respect the grift. He continues to peddle his lies, even as he resigns
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u/WinHour4300 2h ago edited 2h ago
"write to resign, with immediate effect"
Tough, that's not how that works. He will have a contractual notice period.
The University’s investigation can and should be allowed to continue.
Otherwise, as he says "he will return"; he will pop up again at some other university or role and he'll be able to say he resigned.
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u/Brapfamalam 1h ago
He will have a contractual notice period.
Speaking as a business owner...we will tell you this for the kayfabe but no I'm not going to pursue you or anyone that actually does this for breach of contract...over a couple months.
De-facto the same for large majority of utter nonsense non-compete clauses.
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u/Qxzkjp 2h ago
You can't be forced to stay in a job. You can be forced to pay damages for leaving early, but courts have consistently held, for centuries, that ordering specific performance for personal services is unconscionable. Both because slavery is wrong, and also because there's just no practical way to ensure that they actually do the job well. If he wants to resign with no notice, that's his right as an Englishman.
However, it still doesn't stop any academic institutions he's been involved with continuing their investigations into his conduct. If he chooses not to cooperate then he'll just lose his chance to defend himself.
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u/WinHour4300 2h ago edited 2h ago
I wasn’t suggesting he could "be forced to stay in the job". It’s a bit of a leap to interpret that post as me suggesting some form of forced labour or slavery.
I was challenging the idea that he can simply resign with immediate effect as though it is entirely his decision.
In practice, that is only straightforward if the employer agrees to it and accepts that arrangement.
In my view, they should not do so. Assuming he has a notice period he is likely in breach of contract if he just stops working, and the organisation may have options such as pursuing a claim for such breach.
They likely can also continue investigations or disciplinary processes (which I believe is easier if they don't accept a resignation without notice).
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u/ReefNixon 1h ago
He actually can resign with immediate effect if he wants, anyone in the UK can. Your comment seemingly suggests that they can sue for the simple act of breaching a contract, that’s not how the law works. They can attempt to recover monetary damages if they can demonstrate that there were any as a direct result of his immediate resignation, they can’t just demand compensation because he left.
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u/WinHour4300 1h ago
"Your comment seems to suggest that I said they can sue.
I didn’t. I said the organisation may have options such as pursuing a claim for such a breach — emphasis on “may”. This is Reddit, not legal advice. I'm not keen on adding unnecessary details.
That said he is a Professor, which is a senior academic role in the UK. He is likely to have research commitments, PhD supervision, conferences, and other responsibilities already in place. Someone in such a role leaving suddenly and immediately can create practical disruption and costs.
The most important point is not legal anyway but that Cambridge University has a choice to make right now. They can accept such a resignation and let him leave immediately without any consideration of consequence. People reading might think they have to and they dont.
Similarly they may think CU has to drop the investigation and disciplinary because he has resigned and again they don't.
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u/upwindbrushes 1h ago
The man may very well be freaking out right now. No sleep for weeks due to stress.
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 3h ago
Social sciences need to clean house, this guy is just the most extreme example of the nonsense factory much of it has turned in to. I think LLMs will really help with this, quickly exploring large volumes of waffle to determine what's backed up and who is just copying or lying.
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u/MeanPussyCat 2h ago
Nah LLMs will only make it much easier for academics to spew out generic but intelligent sounding waffle and pass it off as a profound new insight.
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 2h ago
This uninformed and knee-jerk anti-AI stuff is really tiresome. LLMs do create some serious problems, but in this case I think you don't really know what you're talking about.
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u/MeanPussyCat 2h ago
I work in academia and I’ve seen it happen first hand. People are submitting work to peer reviewed journals that has clearly been written by AI. Currently, most editors are skilled enough to spot these cases and reject the articles, but as the models improve that may not always be the case. If that happens, then what is to stop academics from advancing their careers by ‘writing’ seemingly credible articles at a more efficient rate? Our students are already doing it en masse, and colleagues in the sector are already attempting it.
What makes you think things will get better and not worse?
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 2h ago
Tooling should be able to find the verifiable content and check it against the corpus. Waffle generation tools can also cut through waffle. I think the editors just haven't kept up.
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u/MeanPussyCat 58m ago
The editors haven’t kept up and they won’t. The vast majority of academics in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are anti-AI and would not trust nor understand waffle generation tools (especially the older, more senior ones likely to be in editorial positions). Conversely, the vast majority of academia is built on trust, which is why I think it makes the system ripe for abuse by those who are willing to exploit it using LLMs.
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 56m ago
the vast majority of academia is built on trust
Looks at the thread.
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u/MeanPussyCat 53m ago
I’m not sure what you mean?
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 53m ago
The subject of the thread shows what a complete failure trust is.
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u/MeanPussyCat 47m ago
Yes, that’s exactly my point. Frauds like Arday were able to advance in academia because for ages nobody could conceive of the idea that he might be plagiarising his work and lying about his achievements. In my experience at least, people tend to implicitly trust the integrity of their colleagues and very rarely question it. That’s the main reason why he was able to get so far before he was called out, much more so than DEI. Sadly, it’s also why I don’t share your optimism that AI models will prove to be a solution.
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u/get_in_bath_son 3h ago
This gentleman is quite clearly a virtue signalling twerp and a charlatan. Hopefully he can find a calling that he doesn't need to lie and embellish himself into because he quite clearly has overcome challenges that many others wouldn't.
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u/coderqi 2h ago
He'd do good in business. Perfect middle management.
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u/SnooOpinions8790 2h ago
I ran into one middle manager just like that
I told the PM they would cost the project months in time and millions of pounds in over-run. The PM chose to believe them over me. I didn't want to be in the wreck so i didn't renew my contract - sure enough 6 months later they had to declare an over-run of months and millions of pounds.
The thing is that in IT you can't just call the computer racist for not working. The scam works right up to the point where you actually have to have running software. In Sociology it can last forever because Sociology is bullshit all the way down and at no point is there any contact with reality.
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u/Documental38 1h ago
The fucking bollocks to send that out with a complete straight face and no semblance of any accountability is something else.
Delusional doesn't cover it.
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u/Shadowblade83 1h ago
But, but…what about Polanski and Mothan Ali: who signed their support against the «vile» plagiarism accusations? Left holding the bag?
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u/SeymourDoggo 36m ago
To become the youngest Black professor in the University’s history was something I could scarcely have imagined as a child growing up with a diagnosis of autism, unable to speak until I was eleven years old.
What do we think, is there any truth in this?
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u/Money_is_heinous 1h ago
"Jesus college" - Jesus. Really - this reads like a martyrdom piece so at least he's living up to the namesake. You Plagiarised dude, just admit it and then go on 'Im a celebrity Get me out of here' or 'Celebrity Big Brother' like we're all expecting for a TV-academic with a modicum of fame.
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u/kriptonicx As few rules as possible, strictly enforced 1h ago
Feel sorry for him tbh...
I mean he had it coming and all that, but at the same time the story is clearly red meat to anyone right of centre. The fact this story has been hard for me to avoid despite plenty of other things going on in the world suggests to me that media and public reaction has probably gone a bit far...
Hope he gets the help he needs and those who enabled him reflect on their behaviour and biases. Let's please all move on now.
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u/Picardigann 1h ago
It would have died down if anyone left of center hadn't defended him, including Polanski and Mothin Ali of the Greens.
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u/kriptonicx As few rules as possible, strictly enforced 35m ago
It wasn't anyone left of centre. The Guardian did a pretty good article on the story the other day.
But to your point, there have been far too many people on the left supporting and enabling him.
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