Jason Arday’s story was always unbelievable. But if you want to believe, you better not look too deeply into it, because you might be sorely disappointed.

Arday became the youngest black professor at Cambridge. But he seems to not only have been guilty of plagiarism but also of a series of lies that sound preposterous:

We have a fantasist in an environment where, for political and social status reasons, everyone takes his claims at face value, or pretends that they do because to express doubt would be to invite unwanted attention. In such fertile ground the fantasist’s claims (which he continues to deny fabricating) inevitably become increasingly outlandish – epic marathon runs, prophetic blessings, an appearance in a television programme that began 20 years before he was born – because he is increasingly secure that they will never be questioned. This is what inevitably occurs when a fantasist encounters people who want, for whatever reason, to believe his fantasies. …

Such scandals can often be mistaken optimistically for an end to the whole shebang of progressive nonsense – for who could ever take them seriously again? But the roots of progressivism are too deeply embedded in the soil of public life. These hilarious exposures – see also Jussie Smollett – are not strong enough to dislodge them. The daring young man on the flying trapeze may fall to the ground with a splat, but the progressive circus is so big that it just moves on.

You can read some of Arday’s claims in this article from 2023. And you can find some of his debunked statements here. I think, however, that if checked, a great many other “facts” in his biography might be unsubstantiated as well.

Will Arday lose his position? Or will the wagons circle until the furor dies down, and will he remain?