There are two Cambridge academics whose cases are worth considering together: William O’Reilly, a historian at the University of Cambridge, and Jason Arday, until recently Professor of Sociology of Education at the same institution. Their circumstances are not identical, and I do not suggest that they are. What interests me is something different: the strikingly different meanings that can become attached to academic misconduct, or allegations of misconduct, when the academic concerned is Black.
The controversy surrounding Arday has moved far beyond questions about one scholar's work, biography or appointment. It has become entangled with arguments about diversity, equality and inclusion, the standards applied by elite universities and, most troublingly, the intellectual legitimacy of Black academics more generally. John McWhorter, for example, has characterised the affair as symptomatic of academia's willingness to tolerate intellectual “mediocrity” from Black scholars in its pursuit of institutional virtue.
It is the movement from Jason Arday to Black scholars that concerns me. Whatever is ultimately established about Arday cannot, by itself, sustain a claim about the intellectual quality of Black academics as a group. Yet this controversy has already been recruited into a much older argument: that racial inclusion necessarily requires the lowering of standards, and that the presence of Black people in prestigious institutions should therefore be viewed with suspicion.
The case of William O’Reilly provides an uncomfortable comparison.
In 2023, Varsity reported the outcome of a Cambridge investigation concerning O’Reilly's use of work written by one of his undergraduate students. According to the newspaper, more than twelve pages of an academic article published under O’Reilly's name contained material taken almost word-for-word from two essays written by the student, whom O’Reilly had supervised. The student had complained to Cambridge in 2021, and after an investigation lasting approximately two years, the university tribunal upheld the plagiarism complaint. Cambridge concluded, however, that the plagiarism resulted from negligent rather than deliberate acts. O’Reilly explained that he had inadvertently incorporated the material while experiencing severe personal difficulties and that he had intended it to serve temporarily as an aide-mémoire while developing his article. The article was withdrawn, a penalty was imposed, and O’Reilly returned to work.
I am not revisiting this case because I believe O’Reilly should have been publicly humiliated, dismissed or pursued indefinitely. Nor am I arguing that his case and Arday's should have identical outcomes. The comparison raises a much more fundamental question: why did O’Reilly's case remain, essentially, the case of William O’Reilly?
His conduct did not become evidence of white intellectual mediocrity. It did not generate a serious public debate about whether British universities had become too willing to tolerate mediocre white academics. White professors elsewhere were not implicitly required to demonstrate that they had genuinely earned their positions. Nobody reasonably suggested that O’Reilly's case told us anything about the intellectual competence of white engineers, historians, scientists, philosophers or medical researchers.
That would, of course, have been absurd. William O’Reilly's conduct could tell us something about William O’Reilly and perhaps something about Cambridge's institutional procedures. It could not tell us whether white academics are intellectually mediocre.
Why, then, can allegations concerning Jason Arday so readily acquire an entirely different racial significance?
This question becomes more important because we do not yet know the final outcome of the processes surrounding Arday. Serious allegations have been made concerning plagiarism, aspects of his academic work and elements of his biography. Cambridge has announced an independent inquiry into his appointment. Those matters should be investigated properly. If misconduct is established, there should be accountability. If allegations are not established, that too should be stated clearly.
I have no interest in declaring Arday innocent simply because he is Black. Racial solidarity cannot require the abandonment of evidence or academic standards. But neither should allegations appearing repeatedly in newspapers substitute for an adjudicative process. There is a considerable distance between taking allegations seriously and deciding that they have already been proved.
The difficulty is that, while the institutional processes continue, a broader racial judgement appears already to have been made in parts of the public conversation. Arday has become connected to DEI, and DEI has become connected to supposedly lowered academic standards. From there, the argument travels remarkably quickly towards the suggestion that universities have been accepting “Black mediocrity”.
This is where the language ceases to concern one professor and begins to implicate the rest of us.
If somebody believes that Jason Arday's scholarship is intellectually mediocre, there is an established scholarly method for demonstrating that. Read his work. Examine his methodology. Test his evidence. Interrogate his arguments. Consider his contribution in relation to the relevant literature. Academic work is open to criticism, and no scholar should be protected from rigorous assessment because of race.
But “academia accepts Black mediocrity” is not a criticism of an individual scholar's work. It is an empirical claim about Black academics as a group. Such a claim would require evidence commensurate with its scale. We would need to know how Black academics were selected, how their qualifications and research records compared with those of other academics, whether appointment and promotion standards differed, and whether there was evidence that mediocre Black candidates were systematically preferred over stronger candidates of other racial backgrounds. We would also need an intellectually defensible definition of “mediocrity” and an appropriate comparison group.
One controversial Black professor cannot provide that evidence. One Black man cannot constitute a dataset from which conclusions about Black intellectual life may legitimately be drawn.
The comparison with O’Reilly therefore matters not because his case went completely unreported; it did not. It matters because his whiteness did not become the explanatory framework through which his conduct was interpreted. He remained an individual. His case did not place white academics collectively in the dock.
That capacity to remain an individual is itself a form of privilege that deserves greater attention.
Black academics frequently encounter a different problem because their presence within predominantly white institutions can acquire symbolic significance whether they want it to or not. An academic can be exceptionally qualified, possess an impressive publication record and deserve an appointment entirely on merit, while simultaneously being presented by an institution as evidence of its commitment to diversity. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
This is one reason I am uncomfortable with the way universities sometimes publicise minority appointments. The Black academic may simply want to be recognised as a historian, engineer, sociologist or scientist, while the institution sees an opportunity to demonstrate progress. The media may see an inspirational story, and opponents of diversity policies may see what they dismissively call a “diversity hire”. The same individual can therefore be transformed into a symbol by people pursuing completely different agendas.
The danger becomes apparent when something goes wrong. The racial symbolism that once made an appointment useful as evidence of institutional progress can suddenly be reversed. The person who once represented inclusion becomes evidence, for critics, that inclusion itself has failed. An appointment celebrated partly because of what it appeared to represent can be reinterpreted as proof that standards were sacrificed in pursuit of diversity.
That is deeply unfair to the individual concerned, but it is also unfair to every other Black scholar who becomes caught in the resulting suspicion.
Indeed, Cambridge itself appears to understand this danger. In responding to the Arday controversy, Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice has reportedly stressed that the case should not undermine the legitimacy or contributions of other scholars of colour. That reassurance is welcome, but its very necessity is revealing. Why should allegations concerning one professor have any bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of another Black academic? Other scholars of colour did not appoint Arday. They did not write his doctorate, his publications or his biography. Whatever an investigation ultimately establishes belongs to the individuals and institutions involved.
Yet Cambridge apparently recognises that the reputational consequences have travelled further. That is precisely the problem.
There is a racial multiplier at work. A controversy begins with allegations concerning Jason Arday. Legitimate questions then arise about Cambridge's appointment procedures. But from there, the categories expand. Arday becomes a discussion about Cambridge's diversity agenda; diversity becomes DEI; DEI becomes synonymous with lowered standards; lowered standards become associated with Black appointments; and eventually one man's controversy becomes evidence of “Black mediocrity”.
At each stage, the individual becomes less visible and race becomes more important.
There is also a painful asymmetry in the way Black excellence and Black failure can be treated. Black intellectual achievement stretches across centuries and encompasses science, medicine, engineering, mathematics, literature, philosophy, political thought and countless other fields. Yet that history never seems capable of permanently settling the question of Black intellectual legitimacy. Each Black scholar may still be required to demonstrate that they personally deserve to be where they are.
Black failure, however, can acquire extraordinary representative power. One Black person's alleged misconduct can suddenly reopen questions about whether Black academics generally are “good enough”.
Centuries of achievement apparently cannot establish collective excellence, but one scandal can be invoked as evidence of collective mediocrity.
There is something intellectually indefensible about that asymmetry.
Academic misconduct is not a racial characteristic. Plagiarism did not begin with DEI, nor did poor scholarship begin when universities started paying greater attention to racial representation. Academics of every racial and ethnic background are capable of brilliance, dishonesty, negligence, originality, mediocrity and everything in between. If we genuinely want to know whether academic standards are declining, we should investigate academic standards systematically. If we want to know whether diversity initiatives have altered appointment thresholds, then that too should be studied empirically rather than inferred from the biography of a single Black professor.
I therefore refuse the false choice between defending Jason Arday unconditionally and joining those who have already convicted him. My argument requires neither position. Perhaps the investigations will substantially vindicate him; perhaps serious wrongdoing will ultimately be established. I do not know, and I am prepared to wait for evidence.
What I do know is that neither outcome can establish the intellectual quality of Black academia.
If misconduct is established, it belongs to Jason Arday. If Cambridge's appointment procedures failed, that failure belongs to Cambridge. If institutional enthusiasm for an inspirational narrative displaced necessary scrutiny, then universities should learn from it. None of those possibilities transforms a Black physicist, historian, engineer, medical researcher or doctoral student into a suspect academic.
And this returns us to William O’Reilly.
His case did not require us to interrogate white intellectual competence. It did not make whiteness responsible for what happened. Whatever criticisms could properly be made remained attached to the academic concerned and to the institution responsible for dealing with the matter.
That is not special treatment. It is precisely how individual accountability ought to work.
I do not want William O’Reilly's case racialised in retaliation for the racialisation of Jason Arday. I want the opposite. I want Arday to receive the individuality that O’Reilly retained.
Investigate Arday. Investigate Cambridge. Ask difficult questions about academic appointments, institutional due diligence, celebrity, compelling personal narratives and the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between universities and their diversity ambitions. Ask why O’Reilly remained in post after Cambridge upheld the complaint against him. Ask whether comparable cases receive comparable institutional treatment.
But do not turn one man's skin colour into evidence against millions of other people.
Whatever the final findings concerning Jason Arday, he is not Black academia. William O’Reilly is not white academia. Neither man should possess the extraordinary power to determine the intellectual legitimacy of everybody who happens to share his race.
Perhaps that is one of the most basic forms of equality academia has yet to achieve: not merely the right to enter its institutions, but the right to succeed, to struggle and even to fail without becoming a referendum on one's race.
White academics have long possessed that individuality.
Black academics deserve it too.
