Black Academics See Their Own Struggles in the Death of a British Professor

The headlines about a Black British professor’s death in London and the plagiarism allegations about his work hit too close to home for Emmitt Riley. 

Jason Arday, the youngest Black professor in the University of Cambridge’s history when he was appointed in 2023, died Aug. 14 after weeks of intense scrutiny of his background and allegations of plagiarism put forward by an American former colleague and “race realist.”

Thousands of miles away in Tennessee, Riley, an associate professor of political science and African and African American studies, said he’s also endured relentless questioning of his work that he believes his white peers don’t get. The tsunami of coverage surrounding Arday’s work and then his death nine days after his resignation is the worst-case scenario of what happens to Black academics in predominantly white spaces, Riley said. 

“Jason became a target in this particular environment because white people do not believe that Black people deserve a seat at the table,” said Riley, the director of African American studies at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Plagiarism concerns about Arday began with a Substack post by a former colleague, Nathan Cofnas (Cofnas has been vocal in his dismissal of Black intellect, claiming Harvard University would have no Black professors were they chosen by merit alone). Cofnas’ post, which pointed to a series of errors in Arday’s work, was picked up by the British press and fueled weeks of criticism. Arday eventually said he’d had enough and resigned. 

On Aug. 14, the 41-year-old Arday was found unresponsive at a home in London. Police said his death was “being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.” 

Black academics around the world are sharing condolences on social media and sharing their own experiences of being targeted by trolls and hounded by the media in ways that echo the sustained coverage Arday faced in Britain and in the U.S.

The parallels Black American academics are drawing aren’t new. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey died by suicide in 2024 after her forced resignation from Lincoln University in Missouri. Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, endured a monthslong conservative campaign before being forced out in 2024, the shortest presidency in the school’s history.

The British media wrote about Arday’s case more than 200 times within 22 days. More than 150 of those articles came from just five publications, according to Newscord, an AI-powered generator that detects news bias and literacy. 

In the days since Arday’s death, Cofnas — a self-defined “race realist” who was fired from his job at Cambridge in 2024 over his views on race — posted on X on Thursday: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”

Without naming Cofnas, the University of Ghent said in a statement that it had launched a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” against a postdoctoral researcher embroiled in the Arday case.

A different set of standards

Riley has been at the University of the South for nearly three years. Throughout his career, he says he’s been questioned about his qualifications. While attending the University of Mississippi, he recalls how one student asked him why all Black people can’t get off welfare and get a doctorate like him. 

As a sociologist, Arday built his academic career studying race, inequality and education. He became the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship at Cambridge University in 2023, but early on there were questions about his credentials.

Riley thinks Arday was targeted by British media, and is a classic example of what it’s like to be Black and in white academic spaces. It’s even worse for those studying and researching Blackness and politics, he said.

The struggle starts earlier than some may think. Even in graduate school, he recalled, Black scholars and students faced challenges navigating which professors were a safe space to work under and who would support their research topics.  On the other side, Black professors face the overpolicing of curricula from higher-ups and negative reviews from white students. 

Riley pointed to Gay, the first Black woman to become president of Harvard, who faced a monthslong conservative campaign criticizing the school’s first Black president, dragging other major institutions that bolstered racial equity and diversity practices.

“If Claudine Gay could be taken down as a scholar, anybody can be taken down because [she] is one of the top academics in political science,” Riley said.

Gay’s tenure remains the shortest in Harvard’s history. She started as the school’s 30th president on July 1, 2023, and resigned Jan. 2, 2024.

What started out as disdain for her response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel turned into plagiarism allegations marshaled by conservative activists. This was despite fierce support from both university leadership and alumni.

Journalist Karen Attiah wrote about Arday’s death on Substack, a media platform used by several independent creators. She drew comparisons between British and American media and pointed out the tabloids’ obsession with Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry. 

“Throughout history, American and British media especially have repeatedly shown the world their lust for the blood of Black people,” Attiah said, especially ones they have deemed to be too powerful or influential for their liking. She goes on to call the attacks on Arday and other Black academics a “digital lynching.”

Attiah, the founding editor of The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section in 2016, faced her own “digital lynching” after being fired for remarks after the death of Charlie Kirk, a well-known conservative influencer. Months earlier, Attiah had written about Columbia University canceling her course in race and media. 

“My journalistic and moral values for balance compelled me to condemn violence and murder without engaging in excessive,” Attiah wrote in her Substack, The Golden Hour. “False mourning for a man who routinely attacked Black women as a group, put academics in danger by putting them on watch lists [and] claimed falsely that Black people were better off in the era of Jim Crow.”

Yet, the internal pressures and mental health challenges Black academics face make headlines when it’s too late.

In the case of Candia-Bailey, the former vice president of student affairs at Lincoln University in Missouri, being asked to resign from her position at her alma mater took a turn for the worse when the administrator died by suicide. In her final email, Bailey accused John Mossley, the university president, of bullying and intense, unfair scrutiny. 

In her dissertation, Bailey wrote about how Black women in academia are often treated like the  “help” and an “outsider within.” Her dissertation eerily mirrors her complaints against Mossley.

“Attempts need to be addressed to look at how African American women can increase and advance in higher education,” Candia-Bailey wrote in the dissertation, according to ABC News. 

Mossley denied any wrongdoing.

Riley, the professor in Tennessee, said he feels the attacks on Black academics are a result of the belief that Black people have nothing to add until it’s time to comment on race. As a result, Black faculty are “overscrutinized.” From the statehouse to the classroom, heavy critiques are ways people root out Black intellectuals, he said. 

“These attacks on Jason Arday, these attacks on Claudine Gay, coming for Black intellectual thought at the same time the Supreme Court has gutted Black people’s ability to vote in a way that’s undiluted … it’s all interconnected,” Riley said.

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