Why Cambridge Enabled Arday

Why did Cambridge anoint Jason Arday to a chaired professorship despite his weak academic training and meager publication record? While Arday deserves credit as con artist extraordinaire, his skills could never have sufficed without a mixture of adulating supporters and cowed skeptics. John McWhorter explains the adulation here. Norman Fenton explains the cowing here. Below I summarize their arguments and draw a practical conclusion. Cambridge will never redeem itself until it repeals its ban on DEI-related skepticism.

Years ago I read a superb book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue on the history of the English language; I have been a fan of linguist John McWhorter ever since. He is better known today as a Black professor who slices through DEI-signaling crap. Dissection in Arday’s case is especially easy because the substantive defense is so thin. By Arday’s own account, his dyslexia prevented him from studying more than one page of academic prose per sitting. His academic contributions were mainly interviews with acquaintances about their personal experiences of racism. Arday’s pronouncements on topics other than himself boiled down to allegations that society is obviously terribly racist except to racists and expecting him to spell it out is racist too. His denials of plagiarism blamed his autism for confusing mimicry with learning and racist pressure for his failure to give credit. Add to that his unbelievable accounts of personal feats, including his Asperger’s-inspired transformation from mute to hyperverbal.

McWhorter inclines to credit Arday’s dreadlocks for multiplying his persuasive effect. In McWhorter’s words, they “seem to have a sirenic effect on many as signaling an allegiance to justice”. But white dreadlocks wouldn’t have worked:

No, it is only because he is black that Arday was elevated in this way. The idea is that being black and triumphing over obstacles merits being appointed a Cambridge professor. This means that race determined his appointment.

McWhorter deplores the lowering of academic standards. He resents the condescension of liberal whites who think that Blacks deserve lower standards. And he especially laments the incentives to young Black scholars to turn from substantive research to activist sloganeering.

McWhorter’s article helps explain how Arday got lifted to such heights, why Cambridge authorities bragged so much about him, and why even now--after nearly all the media who glorified him now admit it was a farce—crowds of true believers call for his vindication. See the not so GoodLawProject, which simultaneously sponsors a petition declaring the plagiarism accusations wholly baseless, a claim that Arday’s plagiarism shouldn’t be a big deal, an attack on The Guardian for exposing other Arday fakery, and an condemnation of public exposures for aggravating Arday’s mental illness. Their supporters call for Parliamentary investigation to prevent further outing of fraudsters from previously underrepresented minorities. Hopefully they will meet with the ridicule they deserve.

I doubt that accusations of joining a lynch mob will do much to muzzle the press. Mainstream media Is scrambling to make up for its gullible sycophancy before and loves to grab readers’ attention. After this much evidence of fraud, suicide seems a confession of guilt. Since no criminal punishment threatened, his suicide also strikes me as narcissistically cruel to his children. Hopefully Arday’s unrepentant defenders will meet with the ridicule they deserve.

I worry more about the impact on academics. A formerly great university like Cambridge surely hosts many free-thinking dissidents who delight in challenging conventional wisdom and puncturing the claims of blowhards. Why such widespread sustained silence as the evidence against Arday mounted? Mathematician and risk analyst Norman Fenton points to the likely culprit in a passage from his recently published book The Capture of Academia. In a nutshell, Cambridge’s Human Resources Department threatens expulsion for perceived disrespect of DEI .

Here’s how it works. Cambridge mandates a Behavioural Attributes Framework (BAF) for job advertisements and promotion. It classifies all jobs by the level of skills required in eight different areas. Levels are rated from A at the top to D at the bottom. I am happy to report that one of those areas, with an implicit weight of over 12%, is “Achieving Results”, and hopefully markdowns to D are rare. But one area is deemed so important for every job, with so much required expertise, that the only acceptable level is A; the BAF doesn’t deign to list any lower. It is called “Valuing Diversity” and explained thus:

Considers and respects the ideas, circumstances and feelings of others. Treats everyone with fairness and respect, adhering to the principles of diversity and inclusion.

· Promotes an inclusive environment which values equality of opportunity and diversity.

· Role models the highest standards of behaviour.

· Challenges or reports inappropriate attitudes, language and behaviour that is abusive, aggressive or discriminatory.

· Acknowledges and respects a broad range of social and cultural customs, beliefs and values within the law.

· Demonstrates mutual respect tolerance and integrity.

· Listens to and respects others’ views and opinions.

Nominally this just requires employees to be considerate of each other. Fans and critics of Arday’s scholarship are seemingly equally welcome, provided they listen to each other respectfully and don’t impugn the other side’s motives. But that’s not close to how it works in practice. As evidence against Arday mounted, Cambridge’s most consistent response was to tar critics as abusive, aggressive, and discriminatory, without a whiff of consideration and respect for their ideas, circumstances and feelings. The only thing that has changed is Cambridge’s stance on the facts, with unconditional defense slipping to calls for patience while they probe this “aberration”. Cambridge still reviles critics, with the allegedly unfounded “witch hunts” before now relabeled a “racist feeding frenzy”.

Any Cambridge don who openly expressed a McWhorter-type view could reasonably expect not just disagreement but also heated accusations of opposing diversity and inclusion, disrespecting Arday’s unique background and customs, abusing norms of respect for chaired professors, aggressively singling out Blacks for criticism, and injuring Arday’s feelings. Perhaps they would be hounded out of Cambridge and tarred internationally, yet another Emmanuel Goldstein targeted for the daily Two-Minute Hate. A precedent had been set with Nathan Cofnas. No wonder so few Cambridge critics spoke out. It wasn’t worth the risk.

The Valuing Diversity requirement resurrects an old Cambridge tradition, applied for hundreds of years and legally revoked only in 1871. It was a religious test, demanding fealty originally to the Catholic Church and later to the Church of England. The pledges of religious allegiance were viewed as testaments to good character, respect for community norms and loyalty to a higher cause. Valuing Diversity is a secular incarnation, with fealty pledged to DEI and large roles for lay priests to enforce its caste-like strictures. One division concerns preference in employment: black dreadlocks win. Another division concerns the right to speak your mind: unrestricted for Jason Arday, near banned for his critics.

This is no way for a university to thrive. For Cambridge to value true intellectual diversity, it needs to drop its hypocritical Valuing Diversity requirement.