{"id":982,"date":"2026-09-17T11:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/edi\/?p=982"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:10:26","slug":"the-cost-of-being-seen-a-reflection-on-professor-jason-ardays-experience-and-what-his-story-requires-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/edi\/the-cost-of-being-seen-a-reflection-on-professor-jason-ardays-experience-and-what-his-story-requires-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The cost of being seen: A reflection on Professor Jason Arday\u2019s experience and what his story requires of us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Veronica Moore, Executive Director, EDI.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A personal reflection:<\/strong> I am sharing these thoughts in my own capacity, reflecting on events that have affected me personally and professionally. The views expressed are my own and are not intended to represent the views or position of Loughborough University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the recent death of Professor Jason Arday, I wish to express my sympathy to all those who have been personally impacted by his experience, whether or not you knew him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason Arday was Professor of Sociology of Education, University of Cambridge. He had been appointed to the professorship in 2023. Before his appointment I had the privilege of meeting him.  He left a lasting impression on me. I found him thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive, warm and insightful, with a genuine concern for social justice, all expressed with a soft voice and great humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were meeting on University business, but our agenda had to be derailed because one of us had just experienced direct racism. We gave ourselves the time to acknowledge the impact and address what needed to happen next. The business had to be secondary. As Black professionals, we understood, without explanation, that this is what we<\/em> have to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of necessity we were both propelled into an intimate conversation with a stranger. We talked about our distinct identities and experiences in Higher Education, and what it means to be visible as leaders in that space, particularly with an EDI remit. I had never met Jason before. I couldn\u2019t have told you anything about his personal life, but I very quickly came to understand something deeply personal about how he navigated the world because, as two Black people, regardless of gender, title, profession or position, we shared so much of that experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he became Professor of Sociology of Education at Cambridge University, I felt simultaneously proud, excited for him, and weary. At 37 years of age he was held up as \u201c\u2026. the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship at Cambridge\u201d. My weariness came from my ongoing struggle with what gets celebrated in relation to equalities. Close colleagues will tell you that I resist celebrating what should already be long established. I honour the work that goes into equality progress \u2014 because trust and believe, no win comes easily<\/em> \u2014 but I resent the way hard-won personal achievements can sometimes be claimed by institutions when the systemic change needed to sustain those achievements has not yet happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isolated instances of \u2018The first Black\u2026\u2019 being presented as progress can feel hollow and problematic if the next Black person still has to work twice as hard as their white counterparts to achieve the same ends. What is there to celebrate if they are also expected to bear the dubious privilege of \u2018paving the way for those that come after\u2019, as though the path has now been cemented, while simultaneously facing a greater risk of being undermined, delegitimised, discredited or dehumanised?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting on the events of this year, so painful was it to witness what seemed to me to be a sustained campaign of hostile scrutiny through some sections of the media, that I made a conscious decision to stop engaging with it. There was no way I could have known the tragic outcome but having met the sensitive and gentle man behind the headlines, I feared for his mental health. I chose to tune out and stop the noise. He had to live through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was on leave and out of the country when messages started to come in from friends that he had died. I wept. I wept for Professor Jason Arday and I wept for us all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue here isn\u2019t the veracity of the claims made against Professor Arday\u2019s scholarship. I am crystal clear what we saw happen to him is not simply about perceived levels of academic or scholarly rigour. Questions about plagiarism arise in academia every day; they do not routinely result in sustained public scrutiny or resignations. Nor is what happened to Professor Arday simply a Cambridge-shaped issue. No university should be giving a quiet sigh of relief that this happened elsewhere in the sector. What happened in this instance can and does happen across the UK Higher Education sector \u2014 often with less visibility and less tragic outcomes, but always with the potential for profound personal and professional devastation, affecting mental health, wellbeing, career and scholarly progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The temptation, and perhaps the pressure now, is for us to move into \u2018busy activity\u2019: well-meaning, performative interventions that risk reinforcing the misunderstanding that this was an isolated event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am resisting that temptation, and I ask that you do too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Loughborough, we already had plans to undertake an end-to-end systemic review of staff and student lifecycles, to improve our understanding of the factors contributing to discriminatory outcomes and, in turn, identify focused activity that changes the systems and cultures producing those outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a long-term piece of work. It is not a quick fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many parts of the Professor Jason Arday story that we can use to ask challenging questions of ourselves through the review process:<\/p>\n\n\n\n