Dr. Arday’s case shows how Black lives in academia can be viewed as disposable the moment they no longer serve the institution.CHRIS RADBURN/AFP/Getty Images
Nathan Andrews is associate professor of international studies at McMaster University and a member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars.
Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor of sociology of education, died on Friday. Too soon, another Black life has been lost; Cambridge’s shining example of institutional change is no more. I hope his family and loved ones can find some peace in this challenging time.
I agree that academic integrity should not be played down in any scenario, but I will leave the arguments about the alleged plagiarism and misrepresented achievements to those who know more about the case itself. I write here, instead, to reflect on the broader problems within the academy that this case reflects: that being the “lonely only” or historic first in academia comes with the upside of fame and power, and the downside of disproportionate scrutiny – and that both can take an emotional toll.
When I first heard that Dr. Arday, then 37, had been appointed Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023 – and just the sixth Black professor working at the university at the time – I did not think it was something the school should have boasted about. Yes, it was a major milestone for Dr. Arday. But for Cambridge, such a feat was long overdue and, if anything, it reflected (and still reflects) the way that persistent whiteness and systemic barriers have prevented other young Black scholars from being offered similar positions. Today, three years after his high-profile appointment, only about 1 per cent of professors in Britain are Black. Celebrating isolated cases of Black excellence without meaningful institutional transformation is hardly worth celebrating.
Dr. Arday’s case also shows how Black lives in academia can be viewed as disposable the moment they no longer serve the institution. As a Black professor myself, this case has provoked a few questions with a troubling lack of clear answers: What happens if I’m deemed to be no longer of use? Would my university support me if I ever became a subject of intense media and public scrutiny? Would the university move on when I am gone?
The disposability of Black lives is partly a function of how whiteness dominates academia. But from decades of thinking and writing about race, from Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks to Hamid Dabashi’s Can Non-Europeans Think?, we know that knowledge is power, and that racism too often influences who is viewed as a legitimate contributor to knowledge. In this context, Dr. Arday’s prestigious position at Cambridge appeared to have been a trigger for those who could not believe someone like him could qualify for that role – that is, someone who originated from a community not expected to think, create, write, know enough or, simply, be exceptional.
But there are other uncomfortable questions this has raised. If Dr. Arday had been white, would he have faced the same degree of media bullying, academic backlash, and public scrutiny? Would the university’s response have been different? Ultimately, we cannot know, but it does appear that some lives matter more in academia.
This is all a symptom of the underrepresentation of Black people in academia. We walk in hallways where people smile and give us the usual collegial nod, but we don’t have the privilege of simply assuming that all our peers believe we have earned our place. Let’s face it: While there are many mediocre academics in very respectable positions, the Black academic often does not feel we can simply be average. For us, it can feel like the weight of a whole village rests on our shoulders, or like we need to work extra hard to disrupt pre-existing stereotypes, societal expectations, and myths about Black people’s intellectual capacities.
This is how a young Black academic in a cutthroat elite institution can be pushed into a constant and difficult state of overdrive. Indeed, in the Hidden Figures podcast series that I co-host, many Black members of faculty in Canada have shared that they have felt overworked, and yet under-resourced and unappreciated. The mantle of being the “first” is part of the strain of that labour, which can lead to what I call Black excellence fatigue.
Instead of probing every accomplishment of Black professors or casting them as a symbol of unmerited “DEI hires,” Dr. Arday’s tragic death should make us reflect on the failures of tokenism, the limits of the concept of Black excellence, and how academia is in need of a broader reckoning so that Black people can thrive, instead of needing to work twice as hard. And solving the problem will require overcoming formidable systemic, institutional and societal hurdles, rather than a token effort.