Times Higher Education spiked an investigative report on plagiarism allegations involving University of Cambridge sociology professor Jason Arday after his legal representatives sent a warning letter, according to report details made public on July 27, 2026.
David Sanders, a Purdue University biochemist and academic misconduct researcher, reviewed a 63-page text comparison dossier prepared by the publication and verified extensive text duplication across Arday's academic work.
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The allegations gained public attention following a publication by Belgian philosopher Nathan Cofnas, who identified dozens of passages in Arday's 2015 doctoral dissertation that matched a 2009 thesis by Brunel University reader Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.
Concerns regarding Arday's publications had previously been flagged in May 2023 by emeritus professor Dave Harris, who discovered uncredited structural and textual similarities between Arday's 2018 study in Social Sciences and a prior study published in BMJ Open by epidemiologist Anjum Memon.
Harris recruited Open University sociologist Martyn Hammersley to evaluate the material, leading to formal notifications sent to Cambridge administration regarding potential research misconduct.
Arday's Response and Defense
During a plenary address at the British Sociological Association conference in Edinburgh, Arday addressed critics of Black academics and the administrative challenges of misconduct claims.
"You get the email and they say you conducted academic misconduct. And you think to yourself, 'Well this is incredible.
I'm on the back foot here. How do I defend myself against this machine?'"
said Arday.
He expressed concern over the institutional processes used during integrity investigations.
