Douglas Murray: The Tragedy of Jason Arday

When news broke on Friday that the disgraced academic Jason Arday had been found dead at home in London, after being accused of plagiarizing much of his work and lying about all manner of biographical details in his recent memoir, there were those on the left who leapt to blame racism.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan immediately posted on X that “Jason Arday was the victim of a pernicious public shaming that other people in his position simply wouldn’t have faced.”

“If Jason Arday were a white middle-class academic,” wrote left-wing Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana, “he would not have been hounded by the British press in the way he was.”

Most deranged of all was Ibram X. Kendi, the prolific purveyor of “antiracism” who rose to fame during the racial reckoning of 2020. “The attacks are wielded by racist propagandists, resenting you for shining a light on anti-Black racism,” he wrote, addressing the deceased professor directly, in an essay titled “The Media Lynched Jason Arday.”

This is manifestly, sinisterly untrue. Firstly, because there have been plenty of “white middle-class academics” who have been hounded from their jobs. Kathleen Stock was bullied out of the University of Sussex over her views about gender. Sir Tim Hunt was subject to the most brutal kind of online backlash, after making one perhaps off-color joke about women, prompting him to resign from his position as honorary professor at University College London. Neither received the kind of sympathy now being accorded to Arday.