Three universities have disputed claims by a Cambridge professor at the heart of a plagiarism row that he holds academic positions with them, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Professor Jason Arday became a poster boy for diversity as the university’s youngest ever black professor, but is facing questions about both his academic record and a series of dazzling anecdotes from his past.
Now, three universities in Britain and the US have contradicted details of the 41-year-old’s professional background which are listed on the website of Jesus College, where he is a fellow.
The official biography states Professor Arday ‘is a Visiting Professor at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’ and at the ‘University of Glasgow in the School of Education’.
But a spokesman for Ohio State University today told the Daily Mail: ‘We have no record of an employee by that name.
‘Visiting professors appear in our employment records. The records would not indicate if an individual visited in another, non-employment, capacity.’
Similarly, a spokesman for the Scottish university said it ‘can confirm that Professor Arday isn’t a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow’ and, when asked by The Herald newspaper if he had ever held that position, added he was ‘never a visiting professor here’.
The profile also describes him as an ‘honorary professor at Durham University in the Department of Sociology’. Although Professor Arday previously held several roles at Durham, the Daily Mail has been told he no longer has any ‘formal’ position there, contradicting his online biography.
Jason Arday became a poster boy for diversity as the university’s youngest black professor, but is now facing questions about his academic record and bizarre claims
Critics have accused Professor Arday, pictured on This Morning in 2023, of taking chunks of his PhD thesis from research by another student, leading him to admit errors in his work
A spokesman for the university said the professor instead ‘had an unpaid academic association…in relation to ongoing project work’.
Professor Arday was contacted for comment, but none was provided prior to publication.
The latest wave of revelations will further ramp up pressure on the University of Cambridge to investigate the veracity of the work and purported professional experience of Professor Arday.
Some have argued that he has come under unfair levels of scrutiny in the matter.
Cambridge has so far held out against taking formal action, suggesting in a previous statement that he was the victim of a ‘vile campaign to undermine his credibility’.
Critics have accused Professor Arday of copying significant chunks of his PhD thesis from earlier research published by another student, leading him last week to admit to a series of errors in his work.
He has insisted he is not a ‘fantasist’ after doubts were raised about his seemingly sensational list of personal achievements, which included running 600 miles in six days and raising millions of pounds for charity.
‘I am accountable for the mistakes I’ve made, I hold myself accountable and other people should hold me accountable,’ he said in an interview with The Times over the weekend.
‘We’re talking about academia here. I didn’t murder somebody. I think the cruelty that I’ve experienced and the positioning of me as this kind of liar and fantasist is totally unacceptable.’
Yet revelations have continued to snowball about the under-fire academic, with The Telegraph revealing that WaterAid had cast doubt on his claim that he volunteered for them ‘installing water points’ in South America and West Africa.
Professor Arday accepts that various achievements he has recounted in the past are not entirely accurate, saying he did not personally raise £5.5million for charity as he once claimed, but was part of a ‘syndicate’ of more than 100 fundraisers, whom he could not name as they had signed non-disclosure agreements.
The Daily Mail previously revealed the academic had seemingly claimed he was in TV series Seven Up – but then backtracked when told it was broadcast decades before he was born.
The landmark show has followed the lives of the same group of people every seven years from the age of seven since 1964.
Footage from a talk Professor Arday gave in 2022 showed him telling the University of Bath’s Race Equality Taskforce: ‘I was part of a programme which doesn’t really exist any more, but was called Seven Up at the time.
‘Seven Up is basically when they follow you over the duration of your life, so they follow you at seven, 14, 21. I was pulled out of the project when I was 14.’
Seven Up was first broadcast two decades before Professor Arday was born in 1985.
The original 14 participants would have been born in 1956 or 1957. The Seven Up project is scheduled to end this year.
He also would have been too old to have featured in a series launched in 2000 by the BBC – Up Millennium Generation – which followed individuals who were seven years old at the turn of the millennium.
In response to inquiries from the Daily Mail on Sunday, Professor Arday said that when he talked of Seven Up, he didn’t mean Seven Up the famous TV series, which followed children at seven-year intervals in the format he described. He said that in fact he was referring to ‘a local community and parent-led initiative developed around the Ubuntu principle that “it takes a village to raise a child”.
‘It was organised by Black women to support Black mothers raising children with complex learning needs.’
He asked that we attribute the quotes to ‘a source close to Professor Arday’.
Footage has emerged from a talk the professor gave in 2022 in which he claimed to have appeared in the TV series Seven Up (Pictured: The original Seven Up show which aired in 1964)
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‘The reference to “Seven Up” was used informally as a shorthand illustration of the concept. It was not intended as a literal comparison and should be understood in the context in which it was made. Attempts to present the phrase in isolation risk creating a misleading impression of both the initiative and Professor Arday’s comments,’ Professor Arday said.
A BBC spokesman on Sunday confirmed Professor Arday had ‘nothing to do with our films’.
Appointed to Cambridge aged 37, the professor of sociology of education has had a remarkable life that, according to talks he has given, has seen him overcome a raft of challenges.
Raised in south London by working-class immigrants from Ghana, he was diagnosed with autism, dyslexia and ‘global development delay’ at a young age, and was non-verbal until the age of 11.
He taught at four universities prior to Cambridge but his elevation to such a high-profile institution sparked scrutiny, which led to allegations of plagiarism in his 2015 PhD thesis last year.
Liverpool John Moores University cleared him of academic misconduct, but there have been calls for a fresh inquiry after critics claimed to have uncovered passages in his work that they allege have been plagiarised.
An investigation by The Guardian at the weekend cast doubt on a claim he made that a pig’s head was sent to his home in a campaign of racist intimidation.
Professor Arday said police investigated the matter but this was denied by the Metropolitan Police.
A spokesman for the University of Cambridge said: ‘We take allegations of academic misconduct incredibly seriously. It is University procedure that investigations are carried out by the institution at which the research was undertaken.
‘This is standard practice in the sector because that institution has access to the information to ensure a full and fair investigation. We have either advised complainants to approach the relevant institution or passed on complaints.
‘Allegations of plagiarism regarding Professor Arday’s thesis and some of his journal publications have been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University and the journals in question.’
A spokesman for Liverpool John Moores University said: ‘In September 2025, the university received allegations of academic misconduct against its former PhD student, Professor Jason Arday.
‘A confidential procedure was conducted in response to those allegations and Professor Arday’s PhD still stands. We will not comment further on a private matter between the university and a former student.’
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