Public figures and friends of Jason Arday have called for a public inquiry into media coverage surrounding the former Cambridge professor, after he was found dead on Friday.
Labour MP Diane Abbott and actress Jameela Jamil are among 30,000 signatories of a letter to the prime minister and culture secretary, which claims Arday’s death followed “two weeks of relentless harassment”.
The letter, issued by the campaign group Good Law Project – which had been representing Arday after he stood down from his Cambridge role amid a plagiarism row – said many of its signatories had privately warned media outlets about the intensity of their reporting.
Lord Simon Woolley, principal of Homerton College, Cambridge said Arday had been subjected to a “toxic, vicious witchhunt”.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, and Labour MPs Bell Ribiero-Addy, Clive Lewis and Nadia Whittome are among the politicians to have signed the statement, alongside former England footballer Eni Aluko, National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede, and broadcaster Carol Vorderman.
It calls for an “immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press”.
Arday, 41, was found found dead at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon. He had resigned as a Cambridge professor of sociology of education on August 5 after allegations of plagiarism and questions about some of his achievements. He had denied the claims.
Liverpool John Moores University – which awarded Arday his PhD in 2015 – concluded that he had not plagiarised work.
The row first erupted after another academic – self-defined “race realist” Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 – said he found numerous instances of plagiarism in the professor’s work. Cofnas’s post had been terminated amid a backlash to his view that under a true meritocracy black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.
Lord Woolley told the BBC’s Broadcasting House programme on Sunday he and a number of close friends had met Arday on Monday, four days before he was found dead at a south London address.
He said Abbott and social activist Misan Harriman were among those who gathered to offer support as they had also experienced “horrible media attention“.
He said Arday felt “hounded” and the relentless media coverage had been “a bloodsport”.
“Diane said to him, she held his hand, and said we will help you get through this,” he added:
“But on that day, we saw a man half his body weight and desperate beyond belief.”
Lord Woolley said issues of plagiarism were constant in academia and that a number of individuals, who had been accused of plagiarism had not been subjected to the attention Arday had received.
“We have to ask this question, we have to talk about – which a lot of people don’t want to talk about, is racism. You have to look at negatively differential treatment.”
On 6 August Cambridge announced an independent investigation into his appointment.
Cambridge celebrated Arday’s appointment as a young black professor, one of a tiny and visible minority in academia. Only one per cent of professors in UK universities are black, making each appointment hugely significant.
The university was facing questions about its duty of care after it put him into the prominent position.
More than £40,000 has now been raised for Arday’s family, after Windrush campaigner Sir Patrick Vernon, who is also among the signatories to the petition, launched a fundraiser.
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