Students, former students and colleagues of the late Prof Jason Arday gathered to demand action at Cambridge University as a legacy for their friend and mentor. But so far there is little sign of the university doing the right thing.
Arday died on 14 August after the media poured out a flood of articles against him, prompted by claims by a white-supremacist ‘scholar’ who believes Black people are inherently less capable. Even ‘liberal’ media like the Guardian joined in, despite knowing Arday’s life was in danger.
Arday’s supporters met Labour MP Dawn Butler in what they describe as “marking an important early step in a wider campaign to honour Professor Arday’s legacy and create meaningful change for Black academics begins to take shape.”
Legacy
A statement from the group goes on to demand the university create a legacy for Jason Arday by taking action, especially to protect students, guarantee safe channels of communication involve them in the institution’s response to his death. They demand genuine self-examination from an institution that let down and betrayed Arday when he was targeted. And they demand that these changes extend beyond just Cambridge:
[We have] brought together the voices of students and colleagues most directly affected by the circumstances of Professor Arday’s passing into the conversation; Dawn is among the first parliamentarians to engage with those closest to Professor Arday, to listen to their experiences, concerns and priorities for what should come next.
At the heart of the discussion was a commitment to centering Professor Arday’s students by safeguarding and supporting them, platforming their requests, and ensuring they have a meaningful role in shaping the institutional and public response in the aftermath of Professor Arday’s passing. The group also addressed the urgent need for the University to confront its cultures and structures which leave students and staff vulnerable.
This includes pressing the University to implement clear, enforceable policies, accountability measures and genuinely independent mechanisms through which students, staff and alumni can raise concerns, access support, and be protected from retaliation or undue external and media pressure. The discussion further recognised that whilst the University of Cambridge is important to the conversation, it remains only one part; the ambition extends beyond this institution.
The issues raised by Professor Arday’s experience speak to wider questions about how Black academics are supported, treated and protected across higher education. These questions cannot be answered by remembrance alone. Professor Arday dedicated his work to challenging racism and confronting prejudice in order to create spaces for those historically excluded from academic conversations. His legacy therefore should not simply be commemorated; it should be acted upon.
Double standards over Jason Arday
Unfortunately, there seems to be no sign of the university addressing its double standards. White academics caught in actual plagiarism before Jason Arday’s death kept their jobs with little fanfare. And now, Cambridge professor James Orr has resigned from the far-right Reform ‘party’ after being caught in unethical behaviour. But Orr is still in post – as an ethics professor:
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Cambridge is reportedly ‘investigating’, but there has been no action so far and the media response to the white, brylcreemed ‘academic’ has been ‘mysteriously’ different – as broadcaster Narinder Kaur summed up:
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Jason Arday’s students were highly critical of the supposed investigation and the union’s whole handling of the attack. One student, who asked to be described as ‘Student Z’, told the Canary:
What is the point of an ‘independent’ investigation if you’ve chosen who’s going to investigate you and you’ve chosen what they’re going to investigate? What trust is that rebuilding? Nobody I’ve spoken to has any faith in it.
The institution has broken all of any trust that they had with the student body, and in particular, students of colour and Black students… You have now, just out of nowhere on a random Friday, dropped the exact details of the scope and who’s commissioning this investigation.
‘Student Y’ accused the university of abandoning Arday to death-by-media:
The university sent him to his death via the media… [They] told him to do the exact opposite of the various resources that I and other people were trying to get him.
When something like this happens, you expect the institution to get ahead of the media… But Cambridge didn’t put anything out. And because of that, there was a massive vacuum… [the press] had a field day.
And student X accused the university of blaming those most affected by its actions and betraying their trust:
What we’re experiencing now is a situation where the people who are the most affected by it are being over-responsibilized to solve the problem… If you don’t build it yourself, there’ll be no solutions for you.
I am funding my PhD because I so desperately believed in my research and the work that I wanted to do… As it currently stands, I do not believe that Cambridge deserves another brown penny of my money… The same institution that knowingly put me in harm’s way in multiple ways, and continues to do so.
Jason Arday’s close circle and Dawn Butler MP are right. Change must come. It must come fast – and it must be far more than an ‘investigation’.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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