Jason Arday, who became Cambridge University's youngest Black professor in 2023, was found unresponsive at his home in Battersea, south London, on Friday, August 14, and pronounced dead at the scene. He was 41.
Police Respond to Incident in Battersea
According to the BBC, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers were called to Daley Thompson Way, Battersea, at 15:12hrs following a report from the London Ambulance Service that a man had been found unresponsive inside a property. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Guardian UK also noted the unfortunate development.
In a statement, police said: "Sadly, a 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next-of-kin have been informed and are being supported by officers. At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious. The case is being investigated by officers from the Met's Central South Command Unit. A file will be prepared for the coroner."
The London Ambulance Service said it deployed an ambulance crew, an advanced paramedic in a fast response car, and members of its Hazardous Area Response Team to the scene.
Resignation and Plagiarism Allegations
Arday was a professor of sociology of education who joined Cambridge in 2023. His tenure at the university came under scrutiny following a series of media reports alleging he had plagiarised his PhD thesis, completed at Liverpool John Moores University, as well as other academic work. Questions were also raised publicly about other claims he had made, including assertions that he ran 600 miles in six days and had raised £5.5 million for charity.
Liverpool John Moores University conducted an investigation and cleared him of wrongdoing. However, pressure on Cambridge continued to mount. Dozens of academics at the university signed a letter calling for an independent inquiry into the processes surrounding his appointment, and the University of Glasgow said last week it would review its own past appointment of him as a professor.
The controversy also extended to the Metropolitan Police, which faced criticism over its investigation into a harassment complaint filed against a Times Higher Education journalist who had contacted Arday with questions months earlier.
Arday's Open Letter and Final Days
Arday resigned from Cambridge and addressed the matter in an open letter published on the Good Law Project's website. "This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge," he wrote. "Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me. It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure."
In the days before his death, Arday cancelled events tied to the promotion of his memoir, which was scheduled for publication by Simon & Schuster later this month.
Related: Lecturer Resigns from Union
Legit.ng earlier reported that a Nigerian lecturer, Professor Mohammed Aliyu-Paiko, renounced his membership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Paiko, a lecturer at the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger state, in an open letter, said his decision was in response to the "irresponsible and inexcusable" tagging of state universities as quacks and irrelevant.
