Top Cambridge professor played the ‘race’ card for a lying DEI hire, then his house of cards collapsed…

Cambridge University is supposed to be one of the last places on Earth where the words “show your work” actually mean something.

After all, it’s Cambridge, for crying out loud.

It’s all about academic excellence, scholarship, evidence, qualifications, and peer review. Their entire reputation is built around the notion that you don’t just accept a claim because somebody important says it’s true, you dig, check, and research. That’s the esteemed Cambridge way.

And that’s what makes the Jason Arday scandal so incredibly awkward.

Professor Arday arrived at Cambridge in 2023 with one hell of a story.

He became the youngest Black professor in the university’s history. His personal journey was extraordinary… he was diagnosed with autism as a child and supposedly couldn’t speak until he was 11 years old. He said he couldn’t read or write until 18 years of age. And then, he eventually earned a doctorate and tore through British academia.

Cambridge, the media, and every academic on the planet celebrated him.

He became a powerful symbol of diversity, perseverance, and breaking barriers inside one of the most prestigious universities in the world…

Until people started asking questions about his work, plagiarism, claims on his resume, and if his “scholarly record” justified his fast and crazy rise through academia.

But many people around Cambridge weren’t interested in hearing any of those questions or answers.

Which brings us to Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen. He’s the cousin of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, but Simon has an impressive resume of his own. He’s one of Britain’s best-known autism researchers and directs Cambridge’s autism research program.

This guy is a serious, accomplished academic who has a ton of credibility.

And he took that credibility and when the questions started he used his good name to protect Jason Arday… and not only that, he also decided the best way to silence the questions was to play the race card.

As questions about Arday’s academic legitimacy were surfacing, Baron-Cohen and Cambridge professor Ricardo Sabates circulated an anti-racism letter to provide cover for him.

The headline of this letter wasn’t exactly subtle:

“URGENT PLEASE SIGN ANTI-RACISM LETTER FOR JASON ARDAY.”

The letter was a warning of an incoming “potential public attack on Jason.”

Because when somebody with this man’s stature starts haplessly tossing around the race card, people are understandably going to hesitate before pushing harder for answers.

Unfortunately for the esteemed professor, a mountain of uncomfortable information started flowing like a river.

And then the entire house of cards started collapsing, and Arday resigned.

Did one of the world’s greatest universities allow DEI to trump its own standards?

Telegraph:

Those words have come back to haunt Prof Cremin after Mr Arday resigned on Wednesday night following weeks of damaging revelations by The Telegraph about his apparent plagiarism and partially fabricated CV.

Now Prof Cremin is among the senior Cambridge staff facing serious questions about the appointment of Mr Arday, their defence of him in the face of mounting evidence of academic fakery, and their high-minded dismissal of questions about his record.

Put simply, did Cambridge University lower its own standards to hire a man of questionable merit simply because of his skin colour? And having done so, did one of the cornerstones of Britain’s world-renowned education system prioritise its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) credentials over its hard-earned reputation?

Did Cambridge get a bit too woke and help create the atmosphere that allowed this to happen?

Cambridge proudly made Arday a symbol… a black man, the youngest black professor, black, black, black. That seemed like all they cared about.

And if you make somebody the face of your DEI success story, you don’t get to turn around and declare his identity is off-limits when people start looking into his qualifications.

DEI harms everybody. Four candidates were interviewed for Arday’s Cambridge position.

But The Telegraph spoke with somebody who had firsthand knowledge, and they said nobody else ever stood a chance.

Telegraph:

The Telegraph has spoken to someone with first-hand knowledge of the interview process that Mr Arday passed through, who believes the university only “went through the motions” with other candidates because he was already the preferred choice.

John Preston, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex, said: “The appointment of Prof Arday certainly raised eyebrows at the time with people who work in this area because his publication record appeared rather thin. It raises questions about whether he was appointed for other parts of his CV.

“There were a lot more qualified people who would have been more suitable… they probably wanted to address their own failures in DEI in the past.”

There’s another ugly side to this, too.

If Cambridge was more interested in Arday’s skin color than whether he was actually capable, then the institution failed him too.

They still went ahead and placed him on an absurdly high pedestal, turned him into a global symbol of Cambridge’s commitment to diversity, and then used his skin color when questions started, as if that’s all he ever was to them. A color.

And we don’t have to guess whether diversity was a major priority for Cambridge at the time.

They said so themselves… after all, just before Arday was hired, Cambridge was under a lot of pressure over not having a “diverse” staff.

Telegraph:

What is beyond question is that Cambridge was desperate to hire more black and ethnic minority professors when it took on Mr Arday in 2023, having been embroiled in a row about its lack of diversity shortly beforehand. The university even went as far as to say it aimed to hire a greater proportion of non-white staff than other universities.

According to a diversity target set in 2019, it wanted to reach “at least the national benchmark in BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] professors (9.6 per cent) with actions planned to exceed national benchmark”.

When the job of professor of sociology of education was advertised, Cambridge told candidates that: “The following groups are currently under-represented in our community: women, those with a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background and those with disabilities.”

Mr Arday, who had spoken many times about his childhood autism and learning difficulties, ticked two of those three boxes.

Cambridge wanted more minority professors, so they blew the DEI whistle and picked from a litter of people who likely had zero business being considered for that role.

And this extra little tidbit explains why people wonder if Cambridge became so invested in the racial story of Jason Arday that it stopped asking the right questions about Jason Arday.

And yes, there were so many questions and concerns.

This is incredible. A must read.
Link below pic.twitter.com/uy4tWPlBYW

— Daniel ShenSmith (BlackBeltBarrister) (@dshensmith) August 6, 2026

Here’s a closeup look at the image:

That’s the danger of making identity part of an institution’s foundation.

Eventually, people stop being individuals, and they become your achievements that you have to defend…. Professor Baron-Cohen is finding that out the very hard and embarrassing way.

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