00:04Silence, afforded in death, but in the last few weeks of his life, Jason Ardé supporters say he had anything
00:13but.
00:16This time last week, I was with Jason because we knew Jason was suffering. We knew that he felt hounded
00:28by those rabid wolves. Jason wouldn't dare leave the house. And we said, we'll get a taxi for you. We
00:41held him in our arms.
00:54We told him he was loved. He held Diane's hands and he said, I love you. But he said, they're
01:07hounding me to death.
01:13And I cannot see a way out.
01:18The news on Friday that Cambridge University's youngest black professor had been found dead.
01:24After weeks of questions over his integrity in both academia and his upcoming book has caused a public reckoning over
01:31his treatment.
01:33To some, the scrutiny was fair and in the public interest. To others, it went way beyond that.
01:39An unrelenting stream of criticism and public humiliation that was not bestowed on white colleagues accused of the same.
01:46He was first appointed as a professor in Cambridge three years ago.
01:55And for those three years, he has had a vicious campaign, a bitter campaign, by anonymous people, by other professors,
02:07who just didn't believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor.
02:15At his vigil tonight, thousands came to pay their respect, including one of his students.
02:21His scholarship mattered enormously to so many, but his greatest contribution cannot be found in a publication, a title or
02:29a citation, nor in his talks.
02:31It is found in people who continue to love him, in the lives he changed, and the confidence he gave
02:38us, and the doors that he fought to hold open behind him.
02:41I think the absence of love in our society is absolutely palpable.
02:45Jason Arday was Cambridge University's poster boy, appearing on TV and podcasts.
02:50His memoir detailing his extraordinary backstory is out later this month.
02:54But his fall from grace was swift.
02:57In July, he was accused of academic plagiarism, and over recent weeks, articles have pored over every aspect of Professor
03:05Arday's life.
03:06According to one media monitoring organisation, 249 national press articles appeared about him in just 22 days.
03:1575% of them, after a resignation statement, in which he said he had reached the limits of what any
03:22person should reasonably be expected to endure.
03:25Over 80,000 people have now signed a petition, calling for an independent inquiry into what they call the relentless
03:32press harassment in the lead-up to his death.
03:37Arday, who had autism, admitted to making formatting and citation errors in early work, but denied allegations of plagiarism and
03:46deliberate dishonesty.
03:49After criticism of a lack of duty of care, today Cambridge's Chancellor issued this statement.
03:54I do believe it is possible to hold to two principles at the same time.
03:58To believe in the importance of academic integrity, and where criticisms of plagiarism arise, about any academic, whoever they are,
04:06ensure that they are rigorously investigated.
04:08And also, to refuse to join in a racist feeding frenzy over a particular academic.
04:14We ended DEI in America.
04:18Across the pond, President Trump has made dismantling DEI a political mission, with black academics like the former Harvard president,
04:27Claudine Gay, found in the firing line.
04:29Now those same conversations about race and merit are playing out here in the UK.
04:34The accusations were first made public by a self-defined race realist, Nathan Kofnas, a Cambridge academic who was sacked
04:42in 2024, amid a backlash to his view that under a true meritocracy, black people would disappear from almost all
04:50high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.
04:54But in a podcast last night, the disgraced academic blamed Cambridge University for the situation.
05:00He was never questioned because of his race and other identity characteristics.
05:04The story, in my view, is really about the people who knew better and who set him up for this.
05:12I am Mr. Jason Alde.
05:14Mr. Jason Alde.
05:16In the coming weeks, there will be soul-searching across multiple institutions.
05:21At the heart of it, this question.
05:23Where does legitimate scrutiny end and something more personal, unrelenting and punitive begin?
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