Jason Arday

[robp135]

What’s people’s thoughts on this story?

Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor

Jason Arday was regarded as an academic superstar, but then questions about his work prompted scrutiny of his backstory and counterclaims of racism

www.theguardian.com

 

[thfcsteff]

It's a wild story, and honestly, I'd like to look into it more.
On the face of this piece he strikes me as someone who most certainly has lied with increasing scope, and in the process undermines the many legitimate issues which he says he was a victim of. I have no doubt he suffered, that much is clear, but yes, no excuse for lying and certainly not plagiarism on such a scale which he appears to have engaged in. The footnote/potential semi-mitigator here would be his early Autism/development delay diagnosis.
A sad story in many ways.

 

[robp135]

It's a wild story, and honestly, I'd like to look into it more.
On the face of this piece he strikes me as someone who most certainly has lied with increasing scope, and in the process undermines the many legitimate issues which he says he was a victim of. I have no doubt he suffered, that much is clear, but yes, no excuse for lying and certainly not plagiarism on such a scale which he appears to have engaged in. The footnote/potential semi-mitigator here would be his early Autism/development delay diagnosis.
A sad story in many ways.

Is that actually true though? Being illiterate is said to have been a lie so that may be as well. Also seem to remember reading something once about how autistic people have a limited capacity to lie.

I take more of an issue with Cambrigdge here tbh. There is absolutely no way they didn’t know he was full of brick but they were happy to take advantage.

 

[thfcsteff]

Is that actually true though? Being illiterate is said to have been a lie so that may be as well. Also seem to remember reading something once about how autistic people have a limited capacity to lie.

I take more of an issue with Cambrigdge here tbh. There is absolutely no way they didn’t know he was full of brick but they were happy to take advantage.

Autism is a large spectrum condition. In fact, the concept of lying and autism takes a whole different set of metrics as the motivations are generally different.

 

[johnaliola]

It’s similar to that high ranking copper who claimed he was in the Falklands when he would have been a child.

Perhaps the claims people made with on CVs or elsewhere are not necessarily why they were given these challenging high profile roles and checks were not deemed necessary on the by the by claims they have made.

He might still be a good teacher and academic but unfortunately everything he does know will be subject to intense scrutiny.