Cambridge professor's death after resignation sparking dangerous calls for media censorship, scholar warns

A civil liberties group that advocates for free speech is cautioning against letting concerns over former Cambridge professor Jason Arday's death turn into media censorship.

In an interview with Fox News Digital Thursday, Senior Scholar for Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Sarah McLaughlin detailed how there has been a major push for censorship in the United Kingdom in the wake of Arday's death.

"And there's a few different avenues this is coming from," she said.

"There are some activist groups and nonprofits who are pushing for a government inquiry into the press and into what kind of process media outlets engaged in that led them to producing all this coverage about him and about the allegations, about plagiarism and other things about his life.

UK POLICE APOLOGIZE TO 'FATHER TED' CREATOR GRAHAM LINEHAN FOR ARREST OVER TRANS SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS "But it's also been picked up by a number of politicians who have signed on to petitions about media inquiries." Last week, the former university professor was found dead at a south London address.

Though his death was treated as "unexpected," Metropolitan Police informed BBC News that it was "not believed to be suspicious," leading some to suspect Arday died by his own hand.

This came just days after Arday announced that he would be resigning from the University of Cambridge after the school announced an investigation into his academic qualifications and honorary appointments amid plagiarism accusations.

In a statement, he suggested "public scrutiny" of him was a factor in his resignation.

"Sadly, the years since my appointment have also been marked by an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack.

While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement.

The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love," Arday wrote.

After his reported death, some have suggested that the press was partially to blame for Arday's death, and members of the U.K.'s Green Party have pushed for measures to reform "media power" in response.

Arday's resignation was covered extensively in the media, in the U.K., the U.S. and other countries.

There were also open questions about his biography, which included claims that critics and media reports alleged ranged from exaggerated to fabricated.