A former Cambridge professor embroiled in a plagiarism scandal once claimed he was awarded an MBE in an interview he later asked to be scrubbed from the web, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Jason Arday resigned on Wednesday from the university, where he had become a poster boy for diversity as its youngest ever black professor, after an investigation was launched into dubious claims on his CV.
It followed an avalanche of revelations about seemingly tall tales from the 41-year-old’s past, as well as allegations he had copied parts of his PhD from another student.
The latest bizarre development earlier today involved claims he was paid ‘1.4million’ for his memoirs.
The saga now threatens to overshadow the expected publication next week of his memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, which describes how he overcame autism so severe it left him non-verbal until the age of 11 to rise to the top of academia.
Yet one particularly extraordinary episode from his life does not feature anywhere in the book, despite Professor Arday once talking about it on a podcast: being awarded, but apparently declining, an MBE.
In a 2023 interview with the Before Our Friends Die podcast, he described how his supposedly prolific fundraising for charity had led to him being offered the honour in 2017.
The episode has since been deleted from the show’s YouTube channel, but audio of the interview has been obtained by the Mail.
Jason Arday became a poster boy for diversity as the university’s youngest black professor, but is now facing questions about his academic record and bizarre claims
Arday’s biography ‘Great and Unfortunate Things’ is due to be published on Tuesday in the US
Critics have accused Professor Arday, pictured on This Morning in 2023, of taking chunks of his PhD thesis from research by another student, leading him to admit errors in his work
In it, Professor Arday says: ‘In 2017, I was awarded an MBE for services to charity. For me, there were two things: there’s a lot of people who do amazing work and helped me get to that point, so if there’s a way of acknowledging it, that would be the first thing.
‘But the thing that’s probably bigger than that is – for me personally – you can’t critique empire and do work on race and accept that kind of award.
‘There are situations where you get your integrity compromised and you’ve got to make a choice.’
Professor Arday does not explicitly state he turned down the award, but there is no mention of his name in either the New Year’s Honour list or Birthday Honours list for that year.
Nor has the academic described being awarded an MBE or grappling with such a seismic life event in his 336-page memoir or any of the talks and interviews he has given either before or since.
The Cabinet Office does not comment on individual honours and details of individuals who have refused honours are kept confidential.
Sources have told the Mail that the reason the podcast mysteriously disappeared from the internet was due to a request from Professor Arday himself.
The academic is understood to have contacted the podcast hosts last year and asked that they delete the episode from their archive, citing unspecified ‘security’ concerns.
Professor Arday was approached for comment about his purported MBE award and asked why he had ensured the podcast was deleted, but no response was provided prior to publication.
It comes after The Guardian revealed on Thursday that Arday told them publisher Simon and Schuster had offered ‘1.4million’ for a ‘pre-empt’ deal, a high early offer for a book before auction.
Industry experts suggested the payment was very high but possible if the company’s UK and US arms had teamed up to buy the book and sought worldwide rights.
But one senior publisher said a book like this would normally sell about 5,000 copies – and with £2 of royalty per copy, that would equate to an advance of £10,000.
Arday gave no currency for the amount during his interview, which is likely either £1.4million or $1.4million (£1million). Simon and Schuster has not confirmed the sum.
Separately, it has been revealed that the head of Arday’s former Cambridge faculty claimed that he was appointed after the university listened to its black students.
Professor Hilary Cremin, head of Cambridge’s faculty of education, spoke prior to Arday’s much-heralded appointment as professor of sociology of education in 2023.
She told the BBC that these conversations with black students had helped Cambridge to ‘face up to some of the structural issues that people face’ at the university.
Professor Cremin was asked questions by Arday about his appointment, including: ‘How can this become the norm?’
She replied: ‘We’ve listened to the voices of our black scholars and our black students and some of it has not been easy to hear, to be honest, but we’re able to face up to some of the structural issues that people face.’
Arday also asked Professor Cremin what she thought about people claiming his was a ‘tokenistic appointment’.
She replied: ‘The board of electors on your interview day were absolutely unanimous. We are so lucky to have you. You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.’
Questions about the academic’s life and career have not been quelled by his dramatic resignation as professor of sociology of education at Cambridge on Wednesday night.
Professor Arday had struck a defiant tone in his resignation statement, refusing to accept any wrongdoing and condemning ‘an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack’ against him.
But in a surreal twist, social media users were quick to notice that his statement was judged to be AI-generated when run through specialist detection software.
Pangram – which is widely considered to be one of the most accurate AI detection tools available – returns a conclusion that ‘100 percent of this text is AI’ when asked to analyse Professor Arday’s statement.
The company, however, warns its tool has a ‘non-zero error rate’ and says its findings should be treated as ‘one signal among many’, rather than as conclusive proof, in disciplinary or legal proceedings.
Professor Arday was approached for comment about whether he used AI to write his resignation statement, but no response was provided prior to publication.
The announcement by Cambridge that the former star academic would be investigated over claims about his ‘academic qualifications and honorary appointments’ also led to an apparent exodus among his supporters.
Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, the celebrated psychologist, and Sonita Alleyne, master of Jesus College, where Professor Arday was a fellow, quietly removed their names from an open letter published by the Left-wing campaign group Good Law Project which had accused ‘Right-wing newspapers’ of trying to ‘smear’ him with ‘fake accusations of plagiarism’.
Professor Arday was initially backed by Cambridge, which had condemned a ‘vile campaign to undermine his credibility’.
But after the Daily Mail revealed a string of universities disputed Arday’s claims that he held academic posts with them, the university yesterday announced it was taking action.
Announcing its investigation into Professor Arday this week, the University of Cambridge said: ‘While we are fully aware of the public commentary and concerns around this matter, it remains vital that any process is thorough and adheres to both university policies and employment law.
‘We also fully recognise that there is a person at the centre of this situation, and we continue to provide support to him.
‘We are aware that Jesus College, Cambridge, will be taking their own steps in relation to some of these matters.’
