If poor Jason Arday killed himself, it will be necessary to work out why. To do so, it will help to know why he resigned his professorship. It seems highly unlikely he resigned if Cambridge University did not want him to. It had defended him in public throughout, after all. Yet if he had been confident of Cambridge’s continuing support, why did he sacrifice the benefit of its protection? If Cambridge suggested to him that its protection would, for whatever reason, shortly cease, what caused its change of mind? What a terrible shock for him if the institution which had raised him so high was now ready to cast him out. Is the institutional attack on the press over this matter a deflection from the truth?
Professor Hilary Cremin is head of the Faculty of Education which bestowed on Arday the chair from which he eventually resigned. She recently published a book called Rewilding Education which ‘calls for a new educational model for a new kind of future – one shaped by the climate crisis, downward mobility, Generative AI and post-truth politics’. Looking at the Cambridge situation, I would sorrowfully say her dream is coming true.
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Steven Edginton
Will the BBC apologise for its role in the Jason Arday story?
