A tale of two Profs - one a white christian nationalist and one not white

There is no question that Prof Arday’s death involved racism: Why isn’t this obvious to everyone?

When I heard of Prof Jason Arday’s death, I was sickened to my stomach, but I was not surprised. The British press had written 249 critical articles containing accusations concerning his character, sporting achievements, professional qualifications and affiliations, over a 22 day period. 188 of these articles were published after his resignation, due to the pressure of the unrelenting public scrutiny. In his resignation letter he stated that he wanted to be “present for his family”, and to reclaim some peace, some privacy and semblance of an ordinary life. Instead he was hounded further and even more intensely, particularly by the rightwing press with The Spectator and The Telegraph publishing over 60 articles, many in the days after his resignation.

Originally accused of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis by Dr. Nathan Cofnas, a self confessed “Race Realist”, Prof Arday had already been cleared of wrongdoing by Liverpool John Moores University which found the errors in his thesis to have been genuine and admitted that supervision they provided may have been lacking. This might have been the end of the matter. Yet, the intensity of press interest in the story reached frenzied heights that ultimately resulted in his resignation, and likely contributed to his death. Why was his story so compelling for those spending resources to deepen and prolong his scrutiny?

Why was his story so compelling for those spending resources to deepen and prolong his scrutiny?

Prof Arday’s transgressions, whether or not ultimately proven, would not under normal circumstances create such intense levels of public interest, nor media scrutiny. Plagiarism and worse accusations have been levelled at academics in senior positions within prestigious universities in the UK before, with little to no coverage in the press. One Cambridge Prof, still in post, was found to have copied extensive parts of a published journal article nearly word-for-word from an undergraduate student under their supervision. Another Prof is still in post after surviving accusations of plagiarism, of protecting a male student who had been accused by multiple women students of sexual assaults, and of sexual assault himself. Only one independent media organisation, Tortoise Media, seems to have taken any interest in this story.

Compare and contrast the intensity of media interest in the person of a non-white Prof specialising in race and racism, whose alleged “crimes” included exaggerating his affiliations and sporting activities in his CV, with that of a white Associate Prof at the same University, who has just been caught on film discussing ways to circumvent UK electoral laws regarding foreign political donations. I’m talking of Associate Prof James Orr, who was filmed in an undercover investigation by journalists from Verbatim Investigations. Associate Prof Orr was shown in discussions relating to the payment of opinion polling for Reform UK by an overseas company, and plotting ways to route larger donations from overseas, which would contravene UK electoral law if proven. As a result of the broadcast of this expose on Channel 4 News, Associate Prof Orr stepped down as Reform’s Head of Policy. While Cambridge University is “looking into these matters” he remains Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion. Only 14 articles have been published on Associate Prof Orr’s conduct.

What was it about the non-white Prof. Arday that attracted so much media attention?

It’s very difficult to prove racism unless a perpetrator admits openly that they are a racist and they are proud of it, as Steve Bannon, Trump’s Campaign Manager in his 2016 election victory, has done. Bannon encouraged the right to embrace racism and to “wear your racism as a badge of honour” in a 2018 speech to the French far right Front National.

Having spent four months on the streets of Leeds, back in 1998, armed with a hidden camera and looking for examples of racial prejudice for the BBC mini series, Black and White, I know just how hard gathering convincing evidence can be. In fact, I found it almost impossible to accept the systematic and all consuming experience of racial discrimination that is run-of-the-mill for many non-white British citizens. I almost came to blows with my fellow, black British, investigator over my need for proof and unassailable evidence. So when cries of racism are made in relation to Prof Arday’s hounding by the British and USA press, I understand the nagging doubts that even those of us convinced that racism exists can feel. It’s not easy to reach the levels of proof demanded by most white British people, like me. My perspective changed during an encounter with the mother of a young child who had been challenged at school for her appearance “My hair is too curly mummy”. I began to grasp viscerally what racism is in the UK. I do not claim to know it as intimately as only a non-white person can, but I realised that I needed to listen more and acknowledge other people's lived experiences.

My frustration as I write this article, is that for many people the racism at play in Prof Arday’s tragedy isn’t clear. Even when the chief accuser turns out to be a self-confessed “Race Realist” who openly claims that non white people are inferior intellectually to white people because of their genetic heritage, (Hereditarianism), rather than the widely accepted view in academia, that systemic social, historical, and economic inequities drive any potentially measurable differences.

A letter revealing the tip of an iceberg in rightwing academia

What originally spurred me to write on this matter, was a letter sent to the Rector of Ghent University, Prof. Petra De Sutter, accusing of a “retaliation” against Dr. Cofnas, for daring to “publish academic misconduct” in relation to Prof. Arday. The letter was widely publicised in the same news media that had found Prof Arday’s story so compelling. The letter attracted over 400 signatures from academics around the world. It went on to suggest that Ghent University was “failing in its duty to protect” Dr. Cofnas from external attacks. A breathtakingly ironic statement.

A letter on this scale is unlikely to have appeared spontaneously, just as hundreds of balaclava wearing men in black are unlikely to have spontaneously appeared in Dover, as the local police claimed. I wondered, was this an organised group? How are these people connected together, and might there be other influences involved, for example, the US white supremacist, christian nationalists? However, I don’t have the resources to gather evidence to fully satisfy such claims one way or the other. I do understand how special interest social networks develop, as I built and tended one as a key part of my own commercial technology events business. Such social media special interest groups can be remarkably loosely woven, while also being extremely efficient at distributing information and intensifying opinion. What I decided to do was take a look at the online activities of a sample of about fifty of the four hundred signatories. What I found did not overly surprise me.

Over 80% of the signatories that I examined, had made comments demonstrating conservative viewpoints. About 25% expressed anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) sentiments or published work critical of initiatives to increase representation for under-represented groups. One suggesting that the idea that certain ethnic groups have no agency is a “mind virus of our age”. Another suggesting that poor performance in certain business areas was due to “misperceptions of ethnic discrimination” - basically blaming evidence of exclusion on the victims of exclusion. One signatory has gone so far as to claim that “Africans are genetically closer to chimpanzees”.

It’s not just anti-DEI and essentially racist statements and beliefs. Gender critical tropes are represented in 8% of the sample. Others express climate science scepticism, continue to claim a good Brexit exists and to campaign for it, or express other left-field - arguably anti-science views - doubting the existence of Long-Covid as an illness, or calling the debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME a mental illness.

Shortly after the publication of the letter attacking Ghent University, another in defence of their actions in suspending Dr. Cofnas was published with over 4,000 signatories from the world of academia. This letter was largely missing from the press coverage, probably never reaching the feeds of those that received the critical letter. Such is the power of the media to gate-keep information that would not show up on the algorithmically defined information feeds of naturally conservative readers.

A failure to contextualise racist attacks by the press

Let’s not underestimate the complexity of the challenge of putting all the pieces together on what happened to Prof Arday in order to consider who ultimately is to blame for his tragic end. Yet the media coverage did not take place in a vacuum and in my opinion, too many of the reporters involved declined to consider sufficiently, the environment in which the accusations were being pitched. The Overton Window has shifted. The President of the USA has openly stated that USA will fund and assist rightwing political organisations in Europe. Christian Nationalism and white supremacism are on the rise in USA and a new right is rising in the UK. Prof Arday was not the first non-white target of the anti-DEI political consensus. It’s only 18 months since the first black President of the Ivy League University, Harvard, was hounded out of her job in comparable circumstances. Dr Claudine Gay stepped down after only six months in post after a coordinated and highly publicised pressure campaign following her defence of free speech on campus during a Congressional Testimony over accusations of anti-semitism relating to student protests over the war in Gaza. Dr Gay was subsequently accused of plagiarism by conservative activists who claimed that she was a DEI hire (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and media outlets which eventually led to her resignation, even though no substantive evidence of plagiarism was found by Harvard in its investigation of the matter.

The rise of the far right powered by academia

And what of Prof James Orr? With close links to both US Vice President J.D. Vance and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, he’s a kingpin in an influential transatlantic network of right-wing, traditionalist, and nationalist thinkers. Vance calls Orr his “British Sherpa” and his “Philosopher King”, and has visited his home in Cambridge, which acts as a finishing school for far right intellectuals of the future. Thiel delivered his infamous “Antichrist Lectures” at Cambridge University under Prof. Orr’s invitation. What scrutiny will we see, even now that he’s been exposed as at least, a central figure in a potentially illegal funding scam for UK’s most dangerous far right organisation, Reform UK. Will he be held to account? I’m not holding my breath.

But let’s leave the last words to Prof. Jason Arday, asked what he would do if he could change the world, he responded:

"I would take a thread and a needle and I'd interweave love into our society.”