Yesterday, 5 August, Professor Jason Arday resigned from his Sociology post at University of Cambridge and Jesus College. When he took the job back in 2023, he became the youngest Black professor ever to teach at the institution. However, since that point, accusations of plagiarism have dogged his work.
Several things seem true at once here. Black academia is under serious threat right now, in the UK, the US and elsewhere. Many of the criticisms against Arday were levelled or amplified by notorious racists.
Simultaneously, Arday’s work shows a remarkable level of similarity to the work of Professor Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, along with several other theorists. At times, it verges on being a one-for-one copy. However, his PhD institution — Liverpool John Moores — has nevertheless cleared him of plagiarism.
The Canary understands that Professor Arday has also made extraordinary claims about his ultra-marathon charity exploits. Given that many UK universities would stand empty of senior staff if they were to expel every braggadocious tit among their number, we don’t particularly care.
Jason Arday — Harassment and corrections
Almost as soon as Arday took his post at Cambridge in 2023, a racist backlash began. The Guardian reported that the university had to begin screening Arday’s emails for racist tirades. The news outlet also quoted a 2025 letter by Baroness Jaqui Smith, which stated that Arday:
threatened with a knife, physically assaulted and spat on; [had] rape and death threats being made to him and his family; bananas and bullets being posted to him via the university campus; and corrosive substances and mutilated animals sent to his family home.
A great deal of this foul harassment is similar to that reported by other Black academics and public figures in the UK. However, the Guardian also questioned several aspects of Arday’s accounts of his experiences. This included the fact that he apparently failed to inform security or his colleagues of a knife-armed man in the building.
In May 2023, Dr David Harris – an emeritus professor at Plymouth Marjon – began emailing Arday with critiques and questions on his work. Arday accused Harris of harassment. However, Harris highlighted points regarding ethics approval and “inadvertent overlap” which necessitated corrections in Arday’s 2018 and 2020 papers.
Of note, Harris was once stripped of his emeritus title following controversy around his self-published 2024 critique of critical race theory. However, his institution reinstated him in 2026.
Back in 2025, Times Higher Education (THE) reporter Jack Grove prepared a story on Arday’s alleged history of plagiarism. In response, Cambridge employed notorious defamation law firm Carter-Ruck to stress that the allegations were false and damaging. THE quickly dropped the story.
Racism and plagiarism
Then, in July 2026, disgraced ex-Cambridge academic Nathan Cofnas published a blog post listing the similarities between Arday’s thesis and Zwozdiak-Myers.
Cofnas, we should note, is a self-styled “race realist” (the pseudo-academic arm of white supremacy). Given that he professed a belief that, under true meritocracy, “close to zero” professors at Harvard would be Black, we can guess why Cofnas devoted his time to attacking Arday.
However, mainstream news sites picked up Cofnas’ blog post. On 24 July 2026, the Telegraph claimed to have carried out analysis of Arday’s PhD thesis. It reportedly uncovered:
more than 100 passages that are identical or nearly identical to a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a Brunel University student.
You can read both Arday’s and Zwozdiak-Myers’ theses for yourself, if you wish. As an illustrative example, the following passage appears verbatim in both texts:
An issue, which has arisen from Dewey’s conceptualisation of reflective action and its subsequent interpretation within initial teacher education concerns whether reflection is limited to thought processes about action, or is more inextricably bound within an action
A single instance of direct copying of this kind, without attribution, would be cause for concern at PhD level (or even below). However, Arday’s thesis goes well beyond that. Whilst he cites Zwozdiak-Myers 12 times, including both the thesis and a later work, that’s far from enough to cover every instance of over-similarity.
However, Liverpool John Moores said that it had investigated Arday and found no evidence of wrongdoing. In fact, Arday told the Guardian that:
To clarify, there have been multiple thorough investigations across several institutions as a result of the allegations, and immense scrutiny, including with an academic misconduct panel who concluded that there was no plagiarism or academic misconduct.
Solidarity and resignation
The Good Law Project published a letter of solidarity for Arday, which stated that:
despite these unequivocal findings, rightwing media have attempted to smear Professor Arday’s reputation and undermine his career. That should concern everyone who believes in academic freedom, fairness and due process.
It is difficult to ignore the question of motivation. When a distinguished Black academic is repeatedly subjected to baseless allegations after being fully exonerated, it signals there is an attempt to undermine Black people who hold positions of influence.
The 16,700+ signatories included Green leader Zack Polanski, Professor Kehinde Andrews, and charity leader Dr Halima Begum.
However, on 5 August, the Good Law Project published Arday’s resignation letter. Voicing his “profound sadness” at resigning, Arday praised the “overwhelming” celebration of his original appointment. He went on to state that:
The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.
That said, the academic also stated that he will one day return “stronger, wiser” and warned that his resignation:
should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge. Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me. It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.
Jason Arday — Several things are true at once
Again, several things are true at once. The level of public scrutiny and harassment Arday has received is undoubtedly motivated by racism.
Likewise, the criticisms of his scholarship contained both good-faith evaluations and white-supremacist offence that a Black man occupied such a high position in academia. Men like Cofnas will try to use cases like Arday’s to undermine Black academia writ large — which we must resist at every turn.
However, Arday’s thesis and several of his later works contain significant evidence of direct plagiarism. The lines, paragraphs, ideas and results he copied are visible to the public. That’s true whether or not his institutions want to admit it.
Featured image via AFRE
By Grace
