Catch Cambridge If You Can

By Abe Greenwald

You can’t say that Jason Arday, who was found dead of an apparent suicide 10 days ago, wasn’t sufficiently educated to be a sociology professor at the University of Cambridge. It was his first-class education that got him the job. Arday had learned exactly what white liberal academia prizes most and how easy it is to simulate. They wanted a magical black colleague with a compelling story of triumph over adversity. So he redesigned himself to be exactly that. That Arday conned his way into Cambridge means he knew more about sociology than anyone else in his department. 

It’s no mystery why Arday’s lies were so outlandish or his plagiarism was so flagrant. He understood that his life and work would never be subjected to scrutiny by the colleagues and supporters who made up his universe. In fact, the bigger the better—the more superhuman he made himself, the more he flattered the egos of those who took pride in spotting his greatness. So Arday said he was nonverbal until 11, illiterate until 18, had run 600 miles in six days, and much more. For a long time, he got away with it.

But what Arday and his colleagues failed to realize is that the elite liberal bubble is not entirely self-contained, and people outside it can see in. Beginning in June, both Arday’s fraud and Cambridge’s complicity in it were exposed to the wider world. The British and American media seized on the story. Arday resigned on August 5 and was found dead nine days later. 

After his death, thousands of people came together at rallies in Cambridge and London to defend his memory and hold the media responsible for his death. Cambridge’s chancellor, Chris Smith, called the reporting on his misdeeds a “racist feeding frenzy.” Lord Simon Woolley, head of Homerton College, Cambridge, accused the press of “public assassination” and “lynching.” Others circulated a petition calling for a government investigation of the media’s role in Arday’s death—it’s got more than 100,000 signatories so far. 

Arday was not killed by those who exposed his falsehoods and plagiarism. Nor was he killed by the academics, administrators, and publishers who turned him into a celebrity. Adults are responsible for their own actions, and Arday was 41 years old. 

One cannot honestly defend Arday either for his deceptions or his apparent suicide. And, in fact, no one really is. What the protesters and petitioners are doing is defending themselves. University administrators, professors, writers, and other liberals are out in the streets screaming at the press for revealing the depths of elite academia’s racism, gullibility, and dishonesty. They’re focusing on the media to take themselves out of the spotlight. Because what the Arday affair revealed is that Cambridge and similar institutions are run by desperate adherents to the bigotry of low expectations. Higher education is obsessed with credentials, yet Cambridge looked at Jason Arday’s minimal, unimpressive, and suspicious record of achievement and decided that he was the very best black candidate they could possibly get. They not only hired him—they made him a star. When their investment turned into farce, they were made objects of humiliation. Once it became a tragedy, they appeared as carriers of a dangerous ideological sickness. 

I like to imagine Jason Arday’s story with an alternate ending. In my fantasy version, he admits to the whole thing and pats himself on the back for orchestrating a brilliant social experiment illustrating the bigotry and fatuousness that prop up elite education. 

At the least, he could have gone on to make a passable living as a pop-culture celebrity. We love our conmen. George Santos, the former congressman and convicted identity thief, will make his debut next month on a Fox reality show titled Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Don’t forget Frank Abagnale, who spent his young adulthood as a petty criminal, passing bad checks and scamming his way through the U.S. and Europe. He impersonated doctors and airline pilots to impress his marks and pick up women. After a few stints in prison, he used his skills to go legit, educating banks and other businesses on how to spot fraudsters. Abagnale’s autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, which itself was largely fabricated, became a hit movie directed by Steven Spielberg and a Tony-nominated musical. 

But Arday would have had a shot at a second act even more spectacular than that. Because he was really the one who caught them. 

Abe Greenwald is the executive editor of COMMENTARY.