Cambridge’s Diversity Poster Boy in Plagiarism Row
25th July 2026
When you’re chief qualification (sometimes your only qualification) is your skin color….
When Jason Arday became a Cambridge professor at the age of 37, he was lionised by the academic world and became a poster boy for the university’s diversity drive.
He had beaten almost impossible odds to get there. Diagnosed with autism, and non-verbal until the age of 11, he had only learnt to read and write at 18 but obtained a degree and a doctorate before forging a career in teaching.
And what wink-wink-nod-nod helped him get those degrees?
Now, on the eve of the publication of his autobiography, the University of Cambridge’s professor of sociology of education has become the subject of a bitter row over plagiarism that has pitted his peers against each other.
On one side of the argument are professors at other universities who believe Prof Arday’s published works, including his PhD thesis, contain passages that are remarkably similar – and in some cases identical – to other academic papers, without proper attribution.
My, what a surprise. “I’m black, y’all, I’m black, y’all, I’m black black blackety black, y’all….”