Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, president of Wolfson College, Cambridge, has quietly withdrawn her name from an open letter defending Professor Jason Arday, the Cambridge academic at the centre of a growing plagiarism scandal, after previously being listed as the letter's second signatory.
Prof Arday, 41, became a poster boy for diversity as Cambridge University's youngest ever black professor, but is now facing scrutiny over both his academic record and a series of anecdotes about his past. Critics have accused him of copying significant chunks of his PhD thesis from earlier research published by another student, and he admitted last week to "a series of errors" in his work. He has insisted he is not a "liar and fantasist."
The open letter, organised by the left-wing campaign group Good Law Project, accused "Right-wing newspapers" of trying to "smear" Prof Arday with "fake accusations of plagiarism." It begins: "We, the undersigned, are appalled by the sustained and malicious attacks on the academic integrity of Professor Jason Arday."
Dame Ijeoma was one of three Cambridge college principals whose names appeared on the letter. Her name is no longer visible on the letter's web page. Prof Arday has been approached for comment.
Another signatory, Lord Woolley, had listed his job title as principal of Homerton College. His name remains on the letter, but his academic role has since been removed.
Seven Up claims unravel
A wave of fresh revelations about Prof Arday's past has increased pressure on university authorities to investigate him further. It emerged that the academic had seemingly claimed he appeared in the television series Seven Up, then backtracked when told the show was broadcast decades before he was born.
Seven Up is a landmark documentary series that has followed the lives of the same group of people every seven years from the age of seven since 1964. Footage from a talk Prof Arday gave in 2022 showed him telling the University of Bath's Race Equality Taskforce: "I was part of a programme which doesn't really exist any more, but was called Seven Up at the time. Seven Up is basically when they follow you over the duration of your life, so they follow you at seven, 14, 21. I was pulled out of the project when I was 14."
Seven Up was first broadcast two decades before Prof Arday was born in 1985. The original 14 participants would have been born in 1956 or 1957, and the project is scheduled to end this year. Prof Arday would also have been too old to have featured in Up Millennium Generation, a BBC series launched in 2000 that followed individuals who were seven years old at the turn of the millennium.
Arday's response
Responding to questions, Prof Arday said that when he spoke of "Seven Up" he did not mean the television series, but rather "a local community and parent-led initiative developed around the Ubuntu principle that 'it takes a village to raise a child.'" He said it was organised by Black women to support Black mothers raising children with complex learning needs, and asked that the quotes be attributed to "a source close to Professor Arday."
"The reference to 'Seven Up' was used informally as a shorthand illustration of the concept. It was not intended as a literal comparison and should be understood in the context in which it was made. Attempts to present the phrase in isolation risk creating a misleading impression of both the initiative and Professor Arday's comments," he said.
A BBC spokesman said on Sunday that Prof Arday had "nothing to do with our films."
From south London to Cambridge
Prof Arday was appointed to Cambridge aged 37 as professor of sociology of education. According to talks he has given, he was raised in south London by working-class immigrants from Ghana, diagnosed with autism, dyslexia and "global development delay" at a young age, and was non-verbal until the age of 11.
He has described only learning to read and write at 18, before enrolling on a BTech course and then a degree in PE and teaching, followed by two Master's degrees and, eventually, a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University. He taught at four universities before joining Cambridge, and his elevation to such a high-profile institution sparked scrutiny that led to allegations of plagiarism in his 2015 PhD thesis last year.
Plagiarism inquiry and pig's head claim
Liverpool John Moores University cleared Prof Arday of academic misconduct, but there have been calls for a fresh inquiry after critics uncovered scores of what they describe as plagiarised passages in his work. Doubts have also been raised over other claims he has made, including that he ran 600 miles in six days and raised millions of pounds for charity.
A weekend investigation by The Guardian cast doubt on a claim by Prof Arday that a pig's head was sent to his home as part of a campaign of racist intimidation. Prof Arday said police had investigated the matter, but the Metropolitan Police denied this.
