More Arday fallout: some students want their money back
I don’t blame them; his professorship was a scam for which the university is responsible. It showed a mindboggling absence of due diligence.
Apparently Arday was a tough grader, too:
A number of Mr Arday’s former students have complained that they received lower grades than expected after “inadequate” supervision by the professor. In one case, a student who asked to change supervisor was accused of being racist.
Separately, Prof Deborah Prentice, the university’s vice-chancellor, is facing demands to refund the tuition fees of students who were taught by Mr Arday after they were “deceived about the nature of their education”.
A mass refund or large-scale retrospective grade changes would be unprecedented in the university’s 800-year history.
I would be nice if they had to give refunds out of their own salaries, but that will never happen. I actually don’t think any refunds will happen, although every student Arday taught should get a pro-rated one. If not, his former students should sue the university for some cause of action involving fraud.
It would be a fitting logical consequence if Cambridge was made to pay, but although that probably will not happen in the monetary sense, I think it’s already happened in terms of the school’s reputation. Also, not only Arday should be losing a job over this. It could start with these two ladies:
Prof Prentice is also facing criticism for failing to grip the crisis engulfing the university, which has damaged its reputation on the international stage. The academics have accused the £507,000-a-year leader of the university of “inaction”, having made no public comments since The Telegraph first reported on the plagiarism row around Mr Arday a fortnight ago. He has now resigned.
It has also emerged that when Cambridge was sent fresh evidence of Mr Arday’s alleged plagiarism last year – having first been alerted to it in 2023 – the “responsible person” allocated to the case was Prof Hilary Cremin, the head of Mr Arday’s faculty who had told him he was “the best in the world” when he was hired.
Were they DEI hires as well? Both are white women; Prentice seems to have a conventional background in social psychology, whereas Cremin seems profoundly granola-esque.
Ann Coulter has pointed out the prevalence of women among Arday’s champions, boosters, and helpers:
All the people promoting Arday seem to be women – agents, editors, co-authors, professors:
Arday’s book editors—Dawn Davis and Kris Doyle
Eve Claxton – co-wrote the book with Arday
Jennifer Gates – Arday’s book agent
Prof. Hilary Cremlin – called Arday’s research, “the best in the world”
So his memoir was “co-written.” Interesting. The book supposedly got an advance of 1.4 million dollars (I wrote “supposedly” because, as far as I can tell, that’s based on Arday’s own report; and we know how reliable that is). Guess what? It’s going to be released anyway; my guess is that it may sell even better because of the notoriety:
Despite allegations against Arday, Simon & Schuster said earlier this week it was planning to go ahead with the publication of his memoir on 11 August in the US and 27 August in the UK. Simon & Schuster US told the Guardian on Thursday night it was “proceeding with the publication of Great and Unfortunate Things by Jason Arday as planned”.
In a previous interview with the Guardian, Arday said Simon & Schuster had offered 1.4m for the book in a “pre-empt”, a type of deal in which a publisher is so keen on a book they put in a high offer to take it off the table before it can go to auction. Arday did not specify whether the 1.4m figure was in pound sterling or US dollars. Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request to comment on the sum. …
One senior publisher said it was an utterly mad number, but that “madness sometimes happens”, so it was conceivable.
It seems that “madness” is happening more and more as time goes on.
The book’s title is Great and Unfortunate Things, which I think is nearly perfect as a description of the entire debacle – not that the book goes into that; I’m going to assume it does not. There’s also this great promotional material:
In comments reported by the Bookseller in April, Kris Doyle, the nonfiction publisher at Simon & Schuster UK, said: “I can promise you’ve never read a story like this – even the viral news headlines don’t do it justice.”
Arday’s lies were entirely egregious, and it doesn’t seem as though the simplest checks were brought to bear. There was totally and complete trust, a willingness to believe that was fervently intense, and a self-congratulatory glow for having done so.
Some of the Cambridge faculty seem to be angry and want an independent investigation:
The signatories want an independent investigation into the circumstances of Arday’s appointment, and any risk assessment made by the university’s management “when crafting a media narrative focusing on his youth, his race, and his transformative potential”.
It also wants details of the university’s handling of allegations of academic misconduct against Arday, including whether the university was involved in efforts to deter journalists from reporting on the allegations.
The university has denied supporting Arday’s efforts to stop publication of critical coverage in the Times Higher magazine last year, or funding his use of lawyers.
The signatories also call for an evaluation of the “enormous damage this episode has done to people of colour within and beyond the Cambridge academic community, and what can be done immediately to reassure them – and the wider public – that anti-racism and academic integrity at Cambridge are both essential and mutually reinforcing.”
It seems to me they want to have their cake and eat it too. Are “anti-racism and academic integrity both essential and mutually reinforcing”? Yes – if and only if the anti-racism is based on equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome.
Lastly, the more I think about the Arday case – and I’ve though about it a great deal – the more I think he wasn’t a DEI hire because of race alone. That was an element, of course. But I think the even-greater element in his story was his supposed profound autism and recovery to ascend the heights of intellectual thought. The two had a synergistic (shall we say intersectional?) effect, making him the perfect candidate for a university position based on sympathy, virtue-signaling, and wishful thinking.
[ADDENDUM: Some details on the complaints of some of Arday’s students:
Former Cambridge students who contacted The Telegraph complained that Mr Arday gave them minimal supervision, telling some they did not need supervision because they were so outstanding, only for them to get lower grades than predicted.
Interesting.]
Good Luck!
So most of the best (sic) institutions, Harvard, Yale, almost all of the Ivies and now Cambridge are guilty of pro-black-anti-white prejudice, gross anti-semitism, and fraud.
Time to go to trade school, become an electrician or plumber, not seek a useless diploma from a biased, tenure-filled, Leftist elite university. Unlesss one seeks a pre-med or pre-law education, of course. If so, knuckle down.
Mistakes were made. What difference, at this point, does it make.
Diversity (i.e. bloc ideologies), Equivocation, and other Inanities (DEI). #HateLovesAbortion
What’s happened — and a social psychologist like Prentice ought to clinically see — is female group think. Janis Irving — or Irving Janice? — made the concept famous in the 1960s, especially among the college educated.
Think of feminist rallying. That’s often ritualized group think. But it’s not like a HS sport where cheerleaders and the game’s referees, as well as the players, are distinctly different groups of people, with different and deliberately conflicting interests. In Arday’s case, they are in the same “team.”
And the grift of social justice warring is just so lucrative, it’s impossible for the long ago well-respected Simon & Schuster to not have a go and let it rip (-off the public)! How shameless and evil.
Poor old Hillary will not be permitted to forget that , will she? 🙂
“Oxbridge” refers to the two great English universities, Cambridge and Oxford. While the current academic scandal came from Cambridge, Oxford has also embarrassed itself in recent years. Naomi Wolf’s Oxford dissertation falsely claimed that gays in 19th century England were executed, based on a misreading of “death recorded.” The mistake was not caught because her dissertation advisor’s specialty was literature, not history. Her mistake was broadcast on a radio program, years after Oxford awarded Naomi Wolf her doctorate. DuckDuckGo: Naomi Wolf Oxford dissertation mistakes. A further reason for the mistake not being caught in time: in the US, candidates have to publicly defend their dissertations. Apparently, not so in the UK.
The Arday scandal has legs!
Cambridge U is scrambling for reputation damage control. And the news keeps getting worse as organizations deny any connection to Arday’s claims.
Arday doubles down on racism, but I doubt that will help him or Cambridge. He’s such an obvious, lying grifter and now he’s been caught.
I say this is the way things change. Not immediately all at once, but gradually, then suddenly, as Hemmingway once wrote.
From Neo’s post: “Former Cambridge students who contacted The Telegraph complained that Mr Arday gave them minimal supervision, telling some they did not need supervision because they were so outstanding, only for them to get lower grades than predicted.”
I looked at the source article from The Telegraph and found this a few screens down:
My speculation is that Arday, being a prime BS-er, probably realized that the students would catch on to his deficiencies, and fantasies, during any kind of interaction. The University biggies probably never talked to him about his supposed academic knowledge, or else he was able to spout enough jargon to keep them on the line.
“The Sokal Hoax” springs to mind.
As for S&S: I recommend they simply move his book from nonfiction to fiction.
See “The Education of Little Tree” for one of my favorite scams in the book trade.
My only surprise is that Arday didn’t give everyone an A, as that seems to be the leading trend in the Ivies these days.
More deep thoughts from the Deep Thinkers at Cambridge.
Talk about own goals.
@ huxley > “The Arday scandal has legs!”
It could be a greater scandal than Ward Churchill in Colorado!
He was an early harbinger of the syndrome of “optics over ability,” but it seems to be getting worse with each revelation of how the Universities sold their Academic birthrights for a mess of Woke pottage.
The students’ complaints are especially ironic given this part of the Arday Saga.
That was the subhead at this LI post a couple of days ago.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/08/celebrated-cambridge-professors-extraordinary-rise-meets-an-extraordinary-reckoning/
Later in that story: “The Guardian, a liberal U.K. media outlet, debunked a number of Arday’s stories in a recent article. Here are two of them:”
When you’ve lost the Grauniad….
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/12/guardian-200-typo-negative-best-worst-grauniad-mistakes
@AesopFan: It could be a greater scandal than Ward Churchill in Colorado!
I’d say so. UColorado Boulder may be a good enough school, but U Cambridge is one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Furthermore, while Churchill was a lying grifter, he wasn’t nearly as insane in his claims as Arday.
Any bets on the Cambridge ratio?
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/08/yale-has-almost-one-administrator-for-every-undergraduate-student/
I think the way to repair Cambridge is something which will never happen: an external audit conducted by intelligent skeptics drawn from outside the world of higher education. Their object would be to identify who among the employees of Cambridge is responsible for contrived harassment of dissenters, for bogus instructional programs, and for decorative hiring. You compile a list and you fire all of them and debar them from working in higher education in the future.
==
No question that higher education is what Fr. Paul Shaughnessy calls ‘sociologically corrupt’, i.e. incapable of reforming itself. Reforms need to be externally imposed and will have to include firing a great many people who fancy they should be untouchable.
Say what you want, the good professor has a rosy future…
‘Plagiarist Claudine Gay getting paid $3.1 million/year after “resigning” from Harvard.’—
https://instapundit.com/815539/
There will be a movie.
He will be the hero.
Arday is correct that “he had not received adequate supervision.” Those who didn’t catch his plagiarism and falsified resume should be fired.
Good point!
How was he supposed to know one is not supposed to copy / steal entire paragraphs and sections without attribution and lie about one’s experiences and qualifications??
(He couldn’t even read till he was ___ !! How’s he supposed to have developed any kind of academic moral sense? Give ‘im a break!)
AppleBetty: There will be a movie.
Being There
Somewhere, Orwell smiles…wanly…
“…Simon & Schuster Selectively Edited Disgraced Scholar Jason Arday’s Memoir To Soften Now-Toxic Reputation”—
https://freebeacon.com/media/exclusive-simon-schuster-selectively-edited-disgraced-scholar-jason-ardays-memoir-to-soften-now-toxic-reputation/
+ Bonus:
“We Fed the Dragon – and Lost the Narrative…”—
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/08/09/we_fed_the_dragon__and_lost_the_narrative_154401.html
H/T Powerline blog (for both).
The answer is money.
Always the perp is the actual victim, just ask any Soros DA/”prosecutor.”
I’ve been watching British youtubes and reading articles on Arday and the stuff is brutal.
Sure, some of that is self-selection, but I don’t remember anything like this in the Claudine Gay plagiarism case at Harvard.
The differences, as I see them:
* Arday’s plagiarisms were more blatant than Gay’s.
* Arday with his dreads, mascara, and soul patch looks like a dodgy hiphop star. Gay looks like a professional.
* It’s 2 1/2 years since the Gay case and people have had that much more time to get fed up with the DEI circus.
* Most of all though, Arday’s life story lies are are so many and so outlandish that everyone knows Arday is a conman and are happy to joke about him. Cambridge too.
Cambridge, DEI, and CRT have been bloodied by the Arday case. I don’t see Arday being shuffled off to a comfy landing like Gay.
Further differences between Arday and Gay:
As you pointed out, Arday’s CV was filled with lies—claims that, like Jussie Smollet’s MAGA assault at 15 degrees at 3am, defied common sense. Such as running marathons umpteem days in a row. While Gay had been promoted beyond her capabilities, her CV was truthful.
Both Arday and Gay were in stressful situations where they needed to adequately defend themselves. When Arday’s CV or “research” papers were questioned, he immediately played the race card—or called the police on a questioner. Gay faced the stress of testifying to a Congressional Committee. Her replies were generally less than satisfactory—often evasive—and gave the impression that she had been intensely coached to give an acceptable answer. (At least that was my take.) However, she never lost her cool under the stress of the Congressional spotlight. Moreover, she never played the race card.
In short Claudine Gay did a much better job of defending herself than Arday did.
(What Claudine Gay did—and tried to do— to Roland Fryer was disgusting.)
“In short…” (continued):
“THE UNCHALLENGED GLOBAL LEADER”—
https://tinyurl.com/39wavtur
Key graf:
In:
https://instapundit.com/815529/
I wonder how much money Cambridge paid Arday to help persuade him to resign?
I’d love it if a Republican governor and state legislature decided to get medieval with a state’s higher education system. They’ve never made the attempt.
“…some students want their money back…”
Well…many citizens want their country back…
(Seems to be a pattern.)
“He Just Bought It From A Shop…”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/he-just-bought-it-shop
Can I have my money back, money back, money back,
Can I have my money back, please, sir?
–Gerry Rafferty, “Can I Have My Money Back”
https://youtu.be/IXQyrQ4WksY?t=8
__________________________________
There was a Gerry Rafferty before “Baker Street.” Charming, whimsical, great country fiddle. He started as a busker.
RIP Gerry Rafftery (1947-2011)
You’d think that various chunks of information accidentally imbibed while doing such massive plagiarism would allow one to at least fake an intro course.