For a short while it seemed as though Cambridge was going to investigate how it was that it had hired someone – Jason Arday – who was a serial plagiarist and liar, as well as unqualified academically. But now there appears to be a shift and the emphasis will be on how the university failed to properly support Arday.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, because reporting on the initial process honestly and thoroughly would be too threatening to the entire belief system that has taken over Cambridge and so many other universities in recent years. We could call that belief system anti-meritocracy, pro-DEI, anti-truth, or some combination of all three. The original stated aims of the investigation would threaten the livelihood of too many people connected with the university. Best to focus on the question of why the university wasn’t kinder and more helpful to Arday, who after all is no longer on this earth because he committed suicide after his plagiarism et al was revealed.

The university is now virtue-signaling, its favorite occupation. But perhaps the greater virtue would have been to have systems in place that wouldn’t have exposed Arday to any of this in the first place by hiring him. His hiring was itself a form of virtue-signaling – “look at this nice young black man we hired; aren’t we super?” They used him, among other things, although he also used them. And both used the students, who were shortchanged.

I would guess that students at Cambridge are constantly shortchanged these days. Cambridge is hardly alone in this, either.

From the article:

As reported by A.J. Katz of TheWrap and original findings published by The New York Times, the University of Cambridge has altered the scope of its planned independent inquiry into the appointment of the late Professor Jason Arday, opting not to focus directly on his individual recruitment or academic record. …

As reported by The New York Times, Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice had initially promised a “thorough and transparent” investigation into the recruitment of Professor Arday, who made national headlines in 2022 when appointed to a chair in the sociology of education as Cambridge’s youngest Black professor at the age of 37.

“However, the university has restructured its approach into a two-part review. The first stage, led by former British prosecutor Nazir Afzal, focuses exclusively on the welfare and support provided to Professor Arday while he was subject to public scrutiny. As noted by A.J. Katz of TheWrap, Mr Afzal stated that this phase is “not about the allegations made against Professor Arday or about his academic record,” but is instead centred on ‘his welfare, his care, his well-being’.”

The second phase of the review is set to evaluate broader university policies regarding academic hiring and the handling of research misconduct claims across the wider institution. As reported by The New York Times, the framework for this second phase remains unfinalised, leading critics to argue that specific questions surrounding Professor Arday’s vetting process will remain unresolved.

I suppose it’s possible that the second phase will actually deal with the origins of the problem honestly and thoroughly. However, I doubt it. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it does.

It seems there are two factions among the Cambridge faculty on this:

A group of Cambridge professors has begun circulating a draft letter expressing concern over the narrowed scope of the review. According to the Times, the draft letter calls for greater institutional accountability and requests an explicit examination into how the university verified and promoted Professor Arday’s qualifications and background during his recruitment.

Conversely, supporters and colleagues have highlighted the severe psychological strain placed on academics facing public allegations, arguing that the university’s primary duty in such circumstances must be to evaluate duty of care and mental health support structures.

The entire thing is sad from start to finish.