He was undoubtedly the tragic victim of an openly racist attack dog and a baying mainstream media.
However, maintaining that Jason Arday was not guilty of plagiarism is worse than useless. We need the truth about him and, more importantly, the whole neoliberal university system.
There is a general commotion to answer the question, ‘Who killed Jason Arday?’
On one level, this is a bit silly. Though we await confirmation from a coroner or some such authority, it seems abundantly clear that he killed himself. Weeks into a media feeding frenzy, in which public allegations of plagiarism fed into a detailed examination of the spectacular life story he had retailed in his career as a celebrity academic, he had already resigned from his post at Cambridge University, and it had become clear that most of the grandiose claims he had made about his biography were false.
He had not been a non-verbal autist until the age of 11, nor illiterate at 18. He had not played for Crystal Palace, or been a pro snooker player, or run 600 miles in six days, or miraculously recovered from a brain tumour.
There is a general commotion to answer the question, ‘Who killed Jason Arday?’
On one level, this is a bit silly. Though we await confirmation from a coroner or some such authority, it seems abundantly clear that he killed himself. Weeks into a media feeding frenzy, in which public allegations of plagiarism fed into a detailed examination of the spectacular life story he had retailed in his career as a celebrity academic, he had already resigned from his post at Cambridge University, and it had become clear that most of the grandiose claims he had made about his biography were false.
He had not been a non-verbal autist until the age of 11, nor illiterate at 18. He had not played for Crystal Palace, or been a pro snooker player, or run 600 miles in six days, or miraculously recovered from a brain tumour.
Continue @ Weekly Worker.
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