Fresh questions over Cambridge youngest ever black professor’s sporting and charitable achievements amid plagiarism row

Times Higher Education is preparing to publish an investigation into Professor Jason Arday, Cambridge's youngest ever black professor, after months of allegations that his PhD thesis and published academic work contained plagiarised material. The Mail on Sunday reports that Cambridge's law firm, Carter-Ruck, sent a five-page letter to the magazine's editor last September threatening legal action to stop the story, and questions have since widened beyond plagiarism to scrutinise other elements of Arday's celebrated life story, including his sporting and charitable achievements.

Arday, 41, rose from a disadvantaged background in Clapham, south London, reportedly overcoming severe autism and childhood illiteracy before earning multiple degrees, including a 2016 PhD from Liverpool John Moores University, and rising rapidly through posts at Leeds Beckett, Warwick, Glasgow, Durham and finally Cambridge, where he became a professor in 2023. He has since received honorary degrees, TED talk and speaking engagements, Royal Society of Arts fellowship, Pride of Britain nominations, and credit for raising £5.5million for charity. Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove spent months investigating allegations from academic peers about plagiarism and methodological concerns before Carter-Ruck intervened to delay publication.