Professor Jason Arday died a few days ago – perhaps by suicide, perhaps of a broken heart – following a gruelling media campaign that had cast doubt on his life, his work, and his intellect. It happened in London, a week after Arday had resigned from his prestigious chair in the Sociology of Education at Cambridge, one of the four or five best universities in the world.
Many of his accusers believed Arday had several faults unrelated to his academic record: he was Black and young. And he probably became a pawn in the struggle between those who theorise that Black people are incapable of reaching high levels of intellectual achievement (as Professor Nathan Cofnas, who was subsequently dismissed in 2024, also at Cambridge, wrote) and those who, on the other hand, promote their inclusion.
I don’t know how professors are selected at Cambridge, but I’m sure the procedure is very rigorous and has been refined over the years (817). Still, as it is a human process, it may have its flaws or be unconsciously influenced by factors that lead it astray. I have a somewhat better understanding of how hostility towards other ethnic groups develops around the world. Many Caucasians – as most Europeans are – have an issue with those who have darker skin, and now and then, bizarre theories put forward “scientific” evidence purporting to prove the unprovable – namely, that some people are superior to others – without, however, being able to specify the dividing line between the “superior” on one side and the “inferior” on the other.
I shall not, therefore, enter into the debate as to whether Arday was a person who deserved the professorship or not. I would, however, like to say a few words about the savage violence I have witnessed in recent weeks. Hundreds of articles have been written about Professor Arday in the space of a couple of weeks. Admittedly, it is August in Britain too, so there is less news than in other months, but still, looking around, I see many events of great interest that are receiving less media attention. Some have attacked him (the vast majority), others have tried to report the facts, and others have defended him.
In all this, however, as Jason Okundaye writes in The Guardian, Arday has become a symbol, and the person behind the symbol has been lost. Reading through his story, one legitimate doubt emerges: he was an excellent scholar, yes, but perhaps not yet excellent enough to hold a chair at Cambridge. And the University appointed him, publicly boasting that he was “the youngest Black professor in Cambridge’s history”. This reality has probably overshadowed the fact that he was chosen because he was the best person for the post, but that he was a young Black man – as if the author’s skin colour were of any relevance when reading academic texts. He may therefore have been used, with little regard for his person, by those wishing to demonstrate that Cambridge is an inclusive university free from prejudice even though Black students remain a tiny minority amongst the thousands of students.
On the other side are those who have spent the last four years of Arday’s life trying to find ways to denigrate him, until they evidently succeeded. There, too, the professor was attacked because he was Black and young (I cannot recall any other campaigns of this kind of violence against young white professors). He was a symbol of difference who, as such, had to be driven out – and perhaps crushed, even though I would like to believe that no one takes any pleasure in his untimely death.
We have become violent, extremely violent. The world teaches us this: Putin, Trump, and the Israeli government speak and act with violence, dragging the rest of the world into a whirlpool of battles — often merely verbal, yet aimed at destroying, wounding, inflicting maximum damage. The “keyboard warriors” act as foot soldiers, as foolish servants. We must be careful – especially us journalists – not to fall into these traps, because the victim is not just the one who has suffered the most, the “classic” victim, in this case Professor Arday, but we are all victims to some extent, as we lose the ability to reason and reflect, and open the door to the possibility that each of us might, in the blink of an eye and without realising what is happening, find ourselves caught up in a whirlpool of poisonous hatred.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
