Hugh Muir is right to muse on the tragic nature of the Jason Arday case (A rightwing witch-hunt focused on Jason Arday – but so did legitimate journalism, 19 August). For it’s a tragedy in so many, many ways. It’s a tragedy that a man has died, leaving a grieving family and friends behind. And it’s a tragedy that the real and necessary objectives of diversity, equity and inclusion have been done a gross disservice by Cambridge University’s cynical tokenism.
It’s a tragedy that this lamentable affair may set back the vital pursuit of equality of opportunity. And it’s a tragedy that in place of moderate voices who understand the need for better representation but with caveats, we have bad actors who see things only through the heated lens of ideology, be that from left or right.
It’s a tragedy that the latter tendency would encourage some on the left, through anger in the wake of Arday’s death, to double down on circling the wagons for their side. And it’s a tragedy that in doing so, they risk becoming entrenched participants in a destructive culture war – and to hell with truth, integrity and decency.
And finally, it is, as Muir points out, a tragedy that in pursuit of a noble cause, some would go as far as attacking the many honourable journalists who were simply doing their job to report this story, in what is still a free press.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
Hugh Muir’s article identifies what has been too peripheral in media coverage of the Jason Arday tragedy so far: that this situation has been the product of a ruthless campaign by the extreme right.
The Arday case is evidence of the extreme right’s obsession with academia as a key battleground, and the extent to which the views of a tiny number of highly marginal figures are hugely amplified by the mainstream media.
Much of the coverage of Arday’s position ignored the fact that the campaign against him had been led by Nathan Cofnas, a self-defined “race realist” with racist views who was dismissed from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He and his like represent a minority within academia, but this summer has shown how the powerful resources of the extreme-right media machine can overpower scholarly standards.
This should be a wake-up call for all academics and universities to take seriously the power of these extreme groups and the need to hold their views to account.
Eleanor Newbigin
Cambridge
I agree with your editorial (17 August) concerning the role of racism in press coverage concerning Jason Arday and that journalists seeking to act responsibly should not be subjected to an onslaught of abuse any more than he was. But there is something missing from the editorial that our institutions, including our media, need to reflect on. You refer to Arday as an autistic child. That autistic child became an autistic adult, and I am not aware of the implications of this being considered in media reporting.
Carol Adams
Ballarat East, Victoria, Australia
The Guardian’s coverage of the Jason Arday story was badly misjudged. Not so much the content as the prominence given to it. For at least two days the headline piece on the website was devoted to someone I had never heard of and concerned events I had little interest in. This at a time when the world is at war and on fire.
The events leading up to the resignation of a Cambridge professor had a place in the UK news section of the website, but not as the lead story on successive days. Your self-serving editorial simply compounds this mistake. It justifies the content but makes no mention of the massive misjudgment in the prominence given to the story.
Stephen Tompsett
Winchester
I appreciated the Guardian’s self-examination following the very sad death of Jason Arday as I have been reflecting on your coverage as well as that of other media. I would, however, urge you to expand the final sentence of your editorial, adding the words in italic here: “A society committed to equality must allow black people the same freedom as everyone else: to achieve, to excel, to teach and to lead, but also to be flawed, to make mistakes, and even to fail, without their failure becoming an indictment of their race.”
Annie Grist
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire
A straightforward mea culpa from Cambridge University would be more appropriate than expressions of sorrow over the tragedy of Jason Arday’s death.
The proper way to address the underrepresentation of black academics is to commit sustained time, effort and resources to the pipeline – from GCSE and A-level through undergraduate and graduate education to research fellowships and academic appointments.
Instead, Cambridge chose to make Jason Arday’s appointment into a highly public symbol of its commitment to diversity.
In doing so, the university inevitably focused exceptional attention on one individual and created circumstances in which both his record and his subsequent difficulties would receive exceptional scrutiny. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the allegations subsequently made against him, the immense pressure that followed was surely foreseeable.
Universities should address structural inequalities structurally, rather than place the burden of representing institutional progress upon individuals.
Prof John Ellis
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of Jason Arday (Report, 14 August). I didn’t know him well enough to comment on the allegations he faced (which at the time of writing remain just that). But far from being a self-serving ladder-climber, he was a deeply thoughtful and generous colleague who cared for those he worked with and taught.
He took the decision early in his career to speak out about prejudice and reduce barriers for those who come after him, and the legacy of his work will live on. Far from Black scholars receiving preferential treatment, solid and repeated quantitative and qualitative evidence show that systematic biases are baked deep into the academic system, from postgraduate research onwards.
Yet it is so easy for us not to see racism, or not to acknowledge it. Over three decades in higher education, I have seen countless instances of plagiarism, lies on CVs and job applications, sexual misconduct and bullying by white academics; too often there has been little action taken, the academics in question have been promoted, and sometimes those raising these problems are victimised.
What can we do to honour Jason’s memory? Recognise the organised campaign of intimidation that Black and Brown students and academics are now facing in the UK, and our complicity in this tragedy; educate about the realities of prejudice; and continue Jason’s work to dismantle the barriers to higher education.
Prof Rachel Pain
Newcastle University
