Jason Arday ‘accused student of white privilege’ after she questioned her mark
Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday accused a student of 'white privilege' after she questioned her grades, it has been claimed.
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Mr Arday, who resigned last week amid allegations of dishonesty and academic plagiarism, is alleged to have implied the student was racist after she complained about receiving a lower-than-expected grade on an essay.
The former student, writing anonymously for the news website Unherd under the pseudonym Fiona Brown, also described his teaching as 'terrible'.
She explained that she was taught by him during his 2018 tenure at the University of Roehampton. After she had an essay marked by him, she received a mark of 70, lower than her usual 75.
After being asked for feedback on her score, she said: "I now saw a side of him I’d never seen before – angry, but also scared. Arday implied that I was racist, and said that the only reason I wasn’t happy with 70 per cent was due to my ‘white privilege’.”
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She also described 'red flags' over his teaching. She said he would "ramble about Tinie Tempah or Eminem, or how black artists like Beyoncé were sexualised by white men, without offering any evidence to substantiate his claims”.
"He often arrived late and left early, once teaching for a single hour when four were scheduled.
“I can honestly describe Arday’s teaching as terrible. He rarely used the PowerPoint slides.
“Instead, he usually sat casually on a desk, giving his generalised views on racism without ever referring to any academic theories – let alone those relevant to the Youth Participation and Identities module he was supposed to be teaching.”
Mr Arday has cancelled events promoting his forthcoming memoir after his resignation over a high-profile plagiarism row.
A bookshop event in Edinburgh and a conference speech featuring the former Cambridge University professor have been called off.
His memoir, Great And Unfortunate Things, is to be published in the UK on August 27.
Prof Arday’s resignation from Cambridge last Wednesday followed a series of media reports alleging he plagiarised his PhD thesis, completed at Liverpool John Moores University, and other research.
Further questions were asked in the press about the truth of other claims he made, including saying he ran 600 miles in six days and that he had raised £5.5 million for charity.
At the start of the week, publishers Simon & Schuster said that Prof Arday’s memoir was to go ahead as planned.
Prof Arday was due to attend Topping and Company Booksellers in Edinburgh on September 18, but the event has now been cancelled.
He was also booked for a “fireside chat” at the Royal Geographical Society.
On their webpage it says the conversation has been cancelled “on the request of the speaker”.
A spokesperson at the University of Roehampton said that Arday was employed as a senior lecturer in the School of Education from September 2017 until February 2019.
The university said it has reviewed its student casework records and identified no complaints relating to Arday during his period of employment.
Mr Arday said in his resignation letter: "This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge.
“Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.
“It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.”