UK's leader calls for reflection after the death of former Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism

LONDON (AP) — Britain's prime minister called for reflection on Saturday after a Black professor who faced a storm of plagiarism accusations died suddenly, days after resigning from a prestigious role at the University of Cambridge.

Jason Arday, who became Cambridge's youngest Black professor in 2023, was found dead inside an address in south London on Friday. He resigned last week as professor of sociology of education after coming under intense media scrutiny, with weeks of news headlines alleging plagiarism in his academic work and questions surrounding claims about his athletic and fundraising accomplishments.

READ MORE: Jason Arday, youngest Black professor at Cambridge, found dead at 41 after resignation

His death has prompted outcries that the allegations against Arday, 41, were magnified into a cruel public takedown motivated by racism and longstanding hostility to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies at universities and other institutions.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Arday's death was "a tragedy on so many levels."

"It's not a moment for any rushing to judgment. It's a moment for reflection, I would say, reflecting on how things came to this," Burnham told reporters.

Police said the death was being treated as "unexpected" but not suspicious. They said officers were called to an address in south London on Friday afternoon and a 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. They did not name Arday, in accordance with police policy.

A friend said Arday had told him that he "felt he couldn't go on" in a voice note earlier Friday.

"He was being subjected to relentless scrutiny, including ridicule, discrediting absolutely every detail of his life, and he wasn't coping with the loss of his career, the loss of his reputation," Cambridge professor and director of the Autism Research Centre, Simon Baron-Cohen, told the BBC.

Arday's family said in a statement that he had been subjected to a "campaign of harassment" and "sustained abuse" ever since he took up his post as professor at Cambridge.

"The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason," the family said in a statement issued through his publisher Simon & Schuster U.K. "We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son."

Cambridge vice chancellor Deborah Prentice, who earlier announced that the university will investigate the circumstances around Arday's employment, said she was "desperately saddened" by the news.

Questions about Arday's qualifications were raised publicly last month by Nathan Cofnas, a one-time Cambridge philosophy researcher who left the university after his critique of diversity, equity and inclusion programs sparked widespread protests. Cofnas previously argued that in a meritocracy, Black people "would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment."

Newspapers soon published stories alleging that more than 100 passages from Arday's 2015 Ph.D. thesis were "identical or near-identical" to an earlier paper written by another researcher.