Jason Arday, the professor at the University of Cambridge who, safe to say, got his position thanks to the ridiculousness of DEI, is basically the LinkedIn bio final boss...
Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of 3, Jason Arday learnt to read & write at 18. On Monday he’ll start work as @Cambridge_Uni’s youngest black Professor. It was a real privilege to help tell his story @BBCNews
UNFORTUNATE CLAIMS‼️
Jason Arday’s most outrageous claimed achievements:
1. Ran 600 miles in 6 days (near world-record ultra feat). Later revised to 12 days with rests.
2. Completed 30 marathons in 35 days — including the last 9 after fracturing his leg / having an epileptic fit.
3. Personally raised £5–5.5 million for 70–80+ charities. Later said it was a 100-person syndicate (couldn’t name them due to NDAs).
4. Featured in the Seven Up! documentary series… which started in 1964. He was born in 1985. BBC: he had nothing to do with it.
5. Installed water points in South America & West Africa with WaterAid. Charity: we don’t send volunteers abroad.
6. Authored the book Being Young, Black and Male (Palgrave). It was only a proposal — never published.
7. Severed pig’s head delivered to his parents’ house + knife threats at Cambridge. Met Police: no investigation took place.
8. Multiple visiting professorships (Glasgow, Ohio State etc.) and a master’s from Birkbeck that the universities say don’t exist.
The “youngest Black professor at Cambridge” origin story is full of claims that keep falling apart under basic fact-checking. #Arday
This is wild. The Atlantic has obtained a copy of Jason Arday's book proposal. In it, he claims to have:
- Experienced 'locked-in' syndrome for several months after being hit by a car. Doctors advised his family to have the life support machine turned off, but he awakened 'miraculously'
- Been struck down by testicular cancer (though this changes in the book to brain cancer)
- Been beaten up by a group of kids and then, in court, pleaded with the judge not to jail them. Coincidentally, two of the kids later became his students, and Arday became godfather to the child of one of them
- Aborted a suicide attempt on a bridge after listening to an Eagles song.
- Been awarded several accolades - of which no proof exists online.
- Been told by a 'shaman woman' in Brazil that he would suffer greatly but also do great thing. 'Every event she described has since come to pass,' he wrote.
The book is due for publication next week by @simonschuster. Surely they have to pull it. https://t.co/GMjBEx3gcU
We often fight the evidence.
What’s not meant for you rarely arrives with a clear rejection... it arrives through repeated small disappointments until you finally stop expecting something different.