Jason Arday: An Addendum
Arday was failed long before the scrutiny of his academic record began.
Ancient literature abounds with stories of rulers led astray by foolish and scheming advisers. Xerxes is encouraged to invade Greece by his ambitious cousin Mardonius, with disastrous consequences. Solomon’s son Rehoboam listens to his young friends rather than his father’s counsellors and loses most of his kingdom. The message is clear. Listen to more than the advice you want to hear.
The comparison with Jason Arday is imperfect. He was no arrogant king. But the people pushing him forward left him ill-equipped for the scrutiny he would face.
Academics, broadcasters, publishers and campaigners found Arday’s story extraordinarily attractive. Here was an autistic young man who rose to become Cambridge’s youngest Black professor. His appointment was celebrated. He was the symbol of barriers overcome and institutions transformed.
The people promoting that story did not have to be cynical. They may have believed every word. But incentives are dangerous even when motives are well-meaning.
Arday’s success validated causes and institutions to which many people had nailed their colours. Every interview, headline and appearance increased both his profile and their investment in him. The rewards were widely shared. The risks were concentrated on one man.
And the higher they pushed him, the more inevitable scrutiny became.
A Cambridge professor should expect his scholarship to be examined. A public figure must know his biography will be checked. Someone presented as an exceptional example of human achievement will attract extraordinary curiosity.
That is the unavoidable consequence of prominence. Those who battle through the ranks to achieve elite status learn to take the knocks along the way. Those who are elevated by procession do not.
There are already knee-jerk accusations of racism from those who see everything through the lens of race. They might ask whether their own obsession helped turn Arday into a symbol before anyone had tested the story built around him.
Jason Arday is dead at 41.
Police describe his death as unexpected but not suspicious. His family has spoken of sustained abuse. Arday himself said before his death that relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary had taken a profound toll.
That makes one question impossible to avoid. Who was looking after Jason Arday, rather than looking after what Jason Arday represented?
The easy response is to blame those who asked uncomfortable questions. Some saw it as their job to press hard for answers. But scrutiny was inevitable. It became more intense because Arday had been used as evidence that ideas of social justice worked.
The duty of care began much earlier.
Before turning a vulnerable human being into a symbol, those opening the doors, awarding the titles and shining the spotlight have a responsibility to ask whether that person is equipped for what follows.
Perhaps the greatest kindness would have been less applause and more scrutiny from the beginning.
The Emperor Still Has No Clothes
Britain’s institutions keep signalling virtue while neglecting the jobs they were built to do.
This is comedy turned to tragedy. What began the silly season as a satirical character of a race and minorities hustler that could have come from the pen of a Tom Wolfe or a Simon Raven turned into something closer to a mix of Ali G and Jay from the Inbetweeners. Jason Arday was not subject to 'a vile campaign of abuse', he was ridiculed and rightly so because his whole story was, basically, ridiculous.
The transition also moved from a satirical jab at the self serving nature and self regard of the 'Educational Establishment' to something more powerful in exposing the farce that is now the University 'Industry', where private equity sets up colleges that are basically visa factories for India, Bangladesh and Nigeria, where thousands of (mainly) Eastern Europeans appear to be granted right to remain status and use it to obtain billions in student loans that will never be paid back and where nobody asks "do we actually need a Professor of the Sociology of Education?"
It is sad that Jason Arday chose the 'easy way out' and left behind a wife and children and it is also sad that the ultimate taboo will now be employed to prevent any proper discussion of the rotten system that he, inadvertently, exposed.