Jason Arday, the former University of Cambridge professor who recently resigned amid a plagiarism controversy, has been found dead in south London.
Emergency services found the 41-year-old unresponsive at an address in Battersea, south London, with the metropolitan police treating his death as unexpected but not believed to be suspicious.
Arday resigned last week as professor of sociology of education at Cambridge following allegations of plagiarism and questions about aspects of his academic record. He denied plagiarism but acknowledged errors in some of his earlier work.
His family said in a statement that they were “in shock” over the loss of “this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son”.
“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone,” the family said.
Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Prof Deborah Prentice said the university was “desperately saddened” by the news. “Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time,” she said.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell said she was “deeply shocked and saddened” by Arday’s death and urged people to remember that “there are real people with loved ones involved” in public controversies.
The controversy surrounding Arday intensified after Nathan Cofnas, a former Cambridge academic who describes himself as a “race realist”, alleged that he had identified numerous instances of plagiarism in Arday’s work. Cofnas was dismissed from his Cambridge role in 2024.
Arday rejected the plagiarism allegations but said some errors in his early academic work were linked to his autism and his use of mimicry to process and understand information. He also argued that similar scrutiny could reveal comparable errors in the work of other academics.
“We’re talking about academia here. I didn’t murder somebody,” he told The Times earlier this month, describing the criticism and public portrayal of him as a “liar and fantasist” as unacceptable.
Arday was appointed a professor at Cambridge in 2023 at the age of 37, making him the university’s youngest Black professor at the time. His appointment was widely viewed as a significant moment for representation in British academia.
Only about 1% of professors at UK universities are Black, according to figures cited in the debate surrounding his appointment.
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Announcing his resignation last week, Arday said the “personal cost” of the scrutiny had become too great. “While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement,” he said.
“The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.” He stressed that his resignation should not “be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me”.
Cambridge previously said allegations involving Arday’s PhD thesis and some of his journal publications had been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University, LJMU, and the journals concerned. LJMU, which awarded him his PhD in 2015, found that he had not committed plagiarism.
Earlier this week, Cambridge announced an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding his appointment.
In a letter to university staff, Prof Prentice said she understood the concerns raised within and outside the university and that the investigation would be “thorough and transparent” and conducted independently by senior academics from Cambridge and other institutions.
Arday previously worked as a PE teacher before earning his doctorate at LJMU. He later became an associate professor at Durham University and a professor of sociology of education at the University of Glasgow.
Glasgow has also announced a review of Arday’s previous academic work. Following news of his death, the university said it was “shocked and saddened” and expressed its sympathies to his family and friends.
Durham University described Arday as “a kind and warm person” who actively sought to promote opportunities for PhD students.
Kehinde Andrews, a professor of Black Studies and a friend of Arday, told BBC Newsnight that Arday had been “very down” after resigning from Cambridge.
“He was very upset. He felt that there was no way out. He effectively wasn’t leaving the house. He had lost a lot of weight,” Andrews said. He described Arday’s experience as a warning about the pressures faced by Black academics in higher education.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy also told the programme that the level of media scrutiny Arday faced was unprecedented for an academic.
Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project described Arday’s death as “a tragedy” and questioned the public interest in continuing to scrutinize him after his resignation.
“I do not understand what the public interest was in continuing to hound him after he resigned as a professor and I do not understand what risk assessments media outlets did,” Maugham said.
BBC
