From the Committee for Academic Freedom:
Cambridge University’s embattled “academic superstar”, Professor Jason Arday, reported a fellow academic to the police after being challenged over apparent inconsistencies, errors and possible plagiarism in his work – raising troubling questions about the use of harassment law as a shield against awkward scholarly scrutiny in an increasingly litigious, low-trust society.
The academic was Dr David Harris, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University and one of the first scholars to raise concerns about Arday’s doctoral thesis and several subsequent peer-reviewed publications on race, inequality and education, including his treatment of concepts such as structural racism, whiteness, decolonisation and racial microaggressions….
Harris’s opening email to Arday, sent on 4 May 2023, was almost absurdly polite: unmistakably scholarly, but also courteous and measured. He explained that he was reviewing Arday’s work as part of a wider research project and attached a detailed document setting out concerns about what he described as “puzzling similarities” in the reported data, repeated passages and possible failures of attribution. The covering email concluded simply: “I would welcome any response.”
When none came, Harris sent a brief follow-up a week later.
Arday replied that same day but did not address the substance of Harris’s concerns. Instead, he recast Harris’s intervention as little more than pettifogging criticism of spelling and grammar, and as evidence of a failure to appreciate the structural racism and ableism which, in his view, such scrutiny helped to perpetuate.
It was, he wrote, “disappointing that you have imposed yourself on me in the manner you have, i.e. without any reflexivity or humility whatsoever”. He continued:
“You will likely know, from your literature reviews not from experience, that the academy is a hostile place for Black scholars. There are very few of us that become professors, and even fewer in the fortunate but precarious position I am in, which is having the platform to represent and uplift other people of colour even beyond academia. As a Black, autistic man with global developmental delay and severe dyslexia, the odds are even less likely; my hope has always been that people like me feel inspired to pursue academia, and that people like you can make space for this.”
“Instead of spending your time trying to dismantle racism and ableism,” Arday added, “you have spent what I assume is hours combing through my work looking for mistakes.”
Harris was, he said, “a monument to the fact we live in a society where grammar is valued above equity”. He ended with the warning: “Anything further from you will be considered bullying and harassment.”
Harris nevertheless replied, prefacing his remarks with an expression of admiration for Arday as someone who had overcome considerable personal and professional adversity, before returning to the academic issues and correcting what he regarded as an inaccurate and damaging account of his own disciplinary history.
What followed is now a matter of public record. Arday contacted the Metropolitan Police to lodge a complaint of harassment against Harris. Because Harris is based in Plymouth, the matter was referred to Devon and Cornwall Police, which declined to pursue it.
Well good for them. One police force at least that knows not to get involved in free speech matters. Unlike the Met.
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