CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The Loss of Jason Arday

Photograph Source: Southdevonian – Public Domain

The outlines of the career and tragic suicide of Jason Arday, a distinguished professor at the University of Cambridge, have been much publicized. These headline-grabbing accounts are not, of course, intended to delve into the deeper and more complex considerations underlying this tragedy. Such considerations may become apparent with the passage of time, awaiting the day when the current media hysteria surrounding Arday has dissipated, as it inevitably will.

This media torrent converges on a simple theme. Arday, it is said, took alleged advantage of the “woke” provisions afforded by DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)– enshrined in the conventional wisdom of British higher education–  and was promoted repeatedly at a rate seemingly beyond his or anyone else’s abilities.

After completing a PhD at Liverpool John Moores University in 2015 while suffering from a brain tumour (Arday claimed the tumour hindered the completion of his doctorate because it caused memory loss before its removal); Arday became senior lecturer at Roehampton university in 2018 (where he taught physical education); before moving to become associate professor at Durham (from 2019 to 2022); prior to becoming professor at the University of Glasgow in 2022. Arday taught the sociology of education at both Durham and Glasgow. In 2023, he was appointed to a Cambridge distinguished chair.

Arday also said he ran 600 miles in 6 days and that he had raised £5.5m/$7.5m for charity. He later amended these claims, saying the 600 miles was run in 12 days, and that the money raised for charity was by a group to which he belonged but could........

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