Hacker News Reader

Comment by InsideOutSanta | Hacker News Reader

Do you actually know that he lied? From the article:

> Cambridge initially said claims of plagiarism regarding Arday's thesis and some journal publications had been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University (LMJU) and the journals in question.

> LJMU - which awarded Arday his PhD in 2015 - concluded that he had not plagiarised work.

It is absolutely undeniable that there has been a witch hunt against minorities in positions of power in the last few years. It is unclear to me whether this guy actually did anything wrong.

What is clear to me, though, is that the level of scrutiny and the attacks he received are not consistent with what most white men in similar situations received.

View on HN

You can check with your own eyes that entire paragraphs of his work were copied verbatim:

https://retractionwatch.com/2026/07/27/cambridge-jason-arday...

https://ncofnas.com/p/dei-fraud-and-cover-up-at-cambridge

he claimed to be a non-verbal autistic for much of his childhood, disputed by childhood classmates; he claimed to have run "30 marathons in 35 days" also disputed and unverified

I followed the story and he absolutely did, in multiple instances.

Why would you believe the institution that granted the PhD? They’re never going to admit they screwed up in granting the degree, how do you think that would affect their reputation?

You can examine his writing and the writing he stole from, side by side. I would suggest doing that instead of believing an institution who has no choice but to lie if they want students to apply to their grad schools in the future.

Liverpool John Moores University doesn’t have a reputation - the only one it’s got is that it’s a former polytechnic attended by people who are never going to cope in the real parts of academia at even the nearby University of Liverpool. Cambridge would have never given this man a degree never mind a doctorate, but once he had one it was a pass to getting inside.

> They’re never going to admit they screwed up in granting the degree, how do you think that would affect their reputation?

How will not admitting they screwed up affect their reputation?

Perhaps we should do annual random audits on 50 or 100 academics to get a baseline against which to measure claims of academic dishonesty. Perhaps there's a correlation between plagiarism and professors who acquire tenure at an unusually young age, for example. Or perhaps older professors gain tenure after a certain number of years 'phoning it in', publishing work that is obviously derivative but reliably inflates citation count at a steady rate. I can't really tell whether any individual academic plagiarist is a true interloper or whether everyone does it a bit get some early stage career momentum with which to attract funding and then perform real research.

I think a lot things are simultaneously true:

1. He exaggerated/lied about some of his accomplishments and aspects of his life. 2. The accomplishments and aspects of his life he exaggerated/lied about did not seem to be about his academic success. Generic life puffery that, while dishonest, did not make him unqualified for his position. 3. Anti-DEI crusaders decided to make an example of him. 4. Had he not been a person of color, the scrutiny would have had a very different shape.

Yes, we do.

He was a fabulist who certainly was more scrutinized because of his skin color, but it really shouldn’t be disputed that he plagiarized and lied profusely.

That doesn’t mean remotely he deserved this.

I also have little hope that everyone who contributed to this sordid tale, from Cambridge, police etc. will have to account for their profound failures.

>who certainly was more scrutinized because of his skin color

The total opposite occured. He was uncrutinized because of his skin color.

It's possible both things occurred, first one, then the other.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com