Recommended
British Black academic Jason Arday, who resigned from the University of Cambridge earlier this month amid a high-profile plagiarism scandal marked by accusations of racism, was found dead on Friday, the educational institution confirmed.
Arday, 41, was found unresponsive on Friday afternoon at a home in south London, according to the capital's Metropolitan Police, which did not confirm the identity of the deceased.
"We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic news," said the University of Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor, Deborah Prentice, in a brief statement.
"We send our deepest condolences to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time," she noted.
The scandal broke out when some academics and press articles accused Arday, who became the youngest Black professor at Cambridge in 2023, of having plagiarized passages from his doctoral thesis.
The right-wing British press and some commentators used those allegations to claim that Arday had unfairly benefited from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Arday announced on August 5 that he was resigning from both his university professorship and his fellowship at Jesus College, shortly after the college announced an investigation into the various allegations.
In a letter posted online, Arday stated that resigning was "the only way" to put an end to a "difficult period," but insisted that the decision should not be "interpreted as an acceptance of the narratives that have circulated about me."
- Allegations from the press -
The Metropolitan Police statement noted that officers received a call from the London Ambulance Service "following a report that a man had been found unresponsive inside a home" in the Battersea neighborhood.
"Sadly, a 41-year-old man was declared dead at the scene," it added.
"At this time, his death is being treated as unexpected, but it is not believed to be suspicious," it noted, adding that the case is under investigation.
Secretary of Education Lucy Powell said she was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the news.
The uproar surrounding Arday increased in July after Nathan Cofnas, an American academic who describes himself as a "race realist"—and who was himself dismissed from Cambridge in 2024 amid accusations of racism—published allegations about him.
Among these were claims that multiple sections of Arday’s doctoral thesis had been copied from other works.
The newspapers The Times and The Telegraph published various investigative articles on Arday's academic work and personal life.
Some of his claims about his personal life, including that he once ran 30 marathons in 35 days and raised millions for charity, were also questioned.
In an interview given to The Times earlier this month, Arday admitted to having made academic "mistakes," but asserted that he was being unfairly "portrayed as a liar, a fantasist, and an academic fraud."
He also maintained that the "campaign to remove me from my position" was "racially motivated."
Arday published his memoirs ("Great and Unfortunate Things"), in which he recounts, among other things, that after being diagnosed with autism in childhood and a general developmental delay, he did not speak until he was 11 and did not learn to read and write until he was 18.
[Publicidad]