No, the media did not 'lynch' Jason Arday

The late Cambridge professor was ultimately a victim of both his own fabulism and hyper-progressive dogma

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

Photo: ConiferousForest19, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

JASON Arday’s death is tragic. Nobody with any semblance of compassion could think otherwise.

But I do wish that we could be spared the complaints from various sanctimonious commentators that Arday was merely an ‘obscure’ academic who became the victim of a racist witch-hunt.

The probing and questioning and exposure of Arday were entirely legitimate. There is compelling evidence that he was guilty of plagiarism and had made a series of fantastical claims about his life and career. Even if he were a little-known academic at some low-ranking university, those facts alone would merit coverage and commentary.

But Arday somehow, and in spite of what some assert was the average standard of his academic work, ended up being appointed as a professor at one of the world’s most august seats of learning – the University of Cambridge – where his students, who had doubtless worked extremely hard to get there, were paying large fees for the privilege of being taught by him. In that context, it would be perverse for the media to have not afforded the story any significance.

And far from being obscure, Arday had happily engaged with the media – often speaking about his fabricated backstory – over many years. He appeared on several TV shows – including as a panellist on the BBC’s Question Time – and guest edited Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. He even carried the Olympic torch.

Moreover, he had secured a major publishing deal for his autobiography, which was set to be released in Britain and the US just as the recent scandal broke. By no measure was this man ‘obscure’; he plainly had no wish to be obscure.

When a fellow academic – Dr David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University – began to question his credentials, Arday accused him of harassment and set the police on him. When Jack Grove from Times Higher Education magazine started investigating, he was subjected to a police inquiry and received a threatening letter from the leading libel solicitors Carter Ruck. Groves’s story was duly spiked.

All of which goes to show that Arday was evidently not averse to hounding others when he felt like it.

But let us be blunt, this scandal is not just about Arday’s fabulism. It is also about the increasingly controversial doctrine of ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI); the obsession of our political, corporate and educational institutions with pushing that doctrine; and how it might have led to someone with Arday’s subpar credentials being appointed in the first place.

Even for those of us on the political left, it should be clear that DEI has become a racket. What may have begun as a well-meaning crusade to overcome mindless prejudice and discrimination has patently mutated into a malignant social tumour, infecting every area of our society and dividing citizen from citizen.

For the leaders of our institutions, who appear heedless to both the damage it wreaks and the opposition it attracts among large parts of the populace, DEI serves as a new national religion, with adherence to its precepts regarded as a test of one’s virtue. Fail to preach the gospel, and be condemned as a reactionary and bigot.

These fundamentalists (for that is what they are) are supported in their mission by legislation, in the form of the Equality Act 2010, which expressly permits differential treatment of citizens according to their ‘protected characteristics’, as well as sprawling and increasingly politicised HR departments which enforce, often ruthlessly and with no space for dissent, the creed of their masters.

Ever anxious to demonstrate their progressive credentials, the better to enhance their own reputations and careers, and to earn social kudos among their peers, institutional leaders make use of every lever available to embed this creed – and to let everyone know they have embedded it.

That all of this has resulted in the diminution of meritocracy and the elevation of some individuals to positions for which they are simply not suitable is, I would venture, undeniable. And that the perceived unfairness of it all has sown the seeds of wider social conflict and fragmentation across our society is similarly indisputable.

The Arday case carries sad echoes of an affair involving a former work colleague of mine. Wayne Brown, who was black, served as a London firefighter. He went through the ranks and was eventually installed as the chief officer of West Midlands fire service – the second largest brigade in England.

Brown’s appointment – he was the first black chief officer in British fire service history – was seen by his new employer as a coup. But it was quickly accompanied by chatter suggesting parts of his backstory had been fabricated and that he had been promoted above his ability. Questions were raised over what, if any, due diligence had taken place.

After credible evidence emerged that he had embellished his CV – falsely claiming to have secured a degree – Brown was (after a fashion) placed under formal investigation. Within days, he had taken his own life.

Brown, like Arday, should not have been given the job in the first place, for he did not hold the required qualifications. And it wouldn’t have taken much effort for his employer to have discovered that for itself. But for reasons we can probably guess, the employer appeared keen to nail down the appointment.

In the end, DEI, especially when applied so zealously, creates its own victims. And these victims are often the same individuals who supporters of the dogma claim be to assisting. It takes those with middling ability and presents them as paragons of excellence - and then, when things unravel, it demonises anyone who dares to level criticism or point out the obvious.

Thus, in the wake of the fall-out that followed Arday’s exposure, the DEI crusaders smeared as racist or hateful anyone who so much as questioned the veracity of the late professor’s version of events or suggested that his appointment had more to do with political expediency than it did academic and professional integrity. If the truth is likely to get in the way of their ideology, then the truth can take a hike, and anyone who speaks it must be besmirched and bullied into silence.

Such a mindset might also explain why, after it was presented with what appeared to be incontrovertible evidence that Arday had plagiarised someone else’s work while enrolled there, Liverpool’s John Moores University made a finding to the contrary. Would an academic institution – which might ordinarily be expected to pride itself on defending truth – really go to the extreme of denying the obvious in an effort to avoid exposing a high-profile poster boy for diversity? So it seemed.

One of the other disturbing aspects of the Arday affair is the manner in which some politically-motivated journalists have inveighed against anyone – including their professional colleagues – who has defended the investigations and coverage in the name of legitimate journalistic inquiry. To witness those who should be the first to defend the principle of a free press make arguments that run contrary to it is rather chilling.

And for all the claims that it was right-wing media outlets and commentators who were driving the coverage, it should be noted that some of the most incisive and informed reporting on the scandal appeared in the pages of the left-wing Guardian.

Some have suggested that Arday would not have faced such fierce scrutiny if he had been white. I’m not sure that’s true at all. In fact, it could easily be argued that if he were white but had precisely the same ability and credentials, he would not have been appointed in the first place.

At any rate, where evidence has emerged that high-profile white people have engaged in fabrication and falsehood, they have often been subjected to robust interrogation. Witness, for example, the fall from grace of journalist Johann Hari, forced out of his job at the Independent and stripped of the Orwell prize on account of his plagiarism. Or the exposure – including by means of a major newspaper investigation and television documentary – of Raynor Winn, who appears to have made up key chunks of her best-selling memoir, The Salt Path. The reputations of both were – quite reasonably – dragged through the mud.

If the coverage of the Arday case was more intense, then it is probably attributable to the fact that people felt the story was not anchored only in his personal dishonesty but spoke to the wider public debate around DEI - and represented perhaps the most striking example we have yet seen of that dogma’s pernicious effects. The coverage was no less valid for that. In fact, it was a perfectly legitimate angle for journalists and commentators to explore.

It is very possible – and, if true, would be deeply regrettable – that Arday did not have sufficient support measures in place when he was finally exposed. But that’s on others. The investigation and coverage were demonstrably in the public interest and, in probing and scrutinising in the way it did, the media was simply doing its job.

There is, of course, always a balance to be struck in these things. In the coverage and commentary accompanying such scandals, we must not lose our humanity or the recognition that real people and their families lay at the heart of it. But neither should we retreat in the face of smears and moral blackmail. Jason Arday was a person who attracted widespread attention and wielded not-insubstantial political, social and cultural influence. If he wasn’t what he claimed to be, he deserved to be exposed. And so do those who, in the face of all common sense, and for the purposes of their own militant ideology, elevated him to a role for which he was neither qualified nor suitable.

Arday’s death may well have occurred by his own hand. But the inescapable truth is that it took place at the altar of identity politics.

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