Jason Arday has cancelled an appearance in London next month, following his resignation as a Cambridge professor in the wake of allegations of plagiarism and questions about some of his achievements.
Arday’s talk at the Royal Geographical Society’s conference has been “cancelled at the request of the speaker”, the organisation said. This comes after Arday who became Cambridge’s youngest ever black professor in 2023 admitted errors in his early work, but said he was not a “liar” and that the recent furore had led to “an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack”.
He had been due to take part in a “fireside chat” at the Royal Geographical Society’s conference in London on 2 September and his appearance at Topping & Company book shop in Edinburgh on 18 September is no longer listed on the website and has reportedly also been cancelled.
He was also announced as a guest for the Arizona Women’s Board Authors’ Luncheon on 24 October, but is no longer listed on the event’s website. He is however still listed as a speaker for the Stroud Book Festival in Gloucestershire in November.
The publisher of Arday’s memoir Great and Unfortunate Things is going ahead with its release in the US on Tuesday and in the UK on 27 August as planned. The book tells the story of his life from being non-verbal until the age of 11 and unable to read or write until 18, then going through a series of “improbable triumphs and heartbreaking setbacks”, before being appointed professor of sociology of education at Cambridge.
Arday has been accused of plagiarism in his PhD thesis, and questions have been raised about the reliability of parts of his life story, including that he ran 600 miles in six days and that he had raised £5.5m for charity. On Wednesday, the University of Cambridge said it had launched an investigation “following new information” about his “academic qualifications and honorary appointments”.
