The ‘Cover-up University’ goes for broke. We have seen one of the biggest scandals in the history of Cambridge University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The appointment of Jason Arday was misjudged. By itself, this was poor, but not a scandal. There are other lousy Professorial appointments in the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first serious misstep was the failure by Prof Hilary Cremin and Dr Rhys Morgan to investigate the plagiarism allegations in 2023. If an academic\u2019s research methodology is inadequate, that should be addressed — it\u2019s part of a university\u2019s duty of care & commitment to professional development. In this case, it could have been resolved in 2023, quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The allegations re-surfaced in 2025, followed by the not fully explained use of the police and Carter-Ruck to silence journalist Jack Grove, working for Times Higher Education.<\/em> There are previous examples of heavy-handed use of lawyers and the police by Cambridge University to shut people up. This time, Dr Rhys Morgan asked Prof Manuel Eisner to examine the allegations. He concluded they were ‘out of scope’, though the scale and seriousness of the problem must have been obvious to him. It was another missed opportunity to deal with matter quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The allegations once again came to light in 2026, this time on substack and twitter\/X. It has now been the top-running story on X for about two weeks. The University’s handling has drawn widespread criticism and helped fan the flames of the scandal. Nobody in the senior leadership team seemed to bother to look at the evidence. Rather, they maintained the fiction that it was all “a vile campaign” motivated by racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has been an ‘omnishambles’, made worse by the fact that our Vice Chancellor, Prof Deborah Prentice, has said nothing at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now there is an attempt to avoid a full scale, indecent and external inquiry (“…feed into a review … Research Committee will review …”<\/em>). The cover-up to end all cover-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It needs to be said clearly that attempts by the senior leadership to thwart an independent inquiry will cause the University to descend into civil war. There is already a growing sense of \u201cthem and us,\u201d with leadership perceived as distant, not listening and unresponsive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Too much damage has already been done. Only a thorough, transparent, and independent examination of events can begin to restore trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must keep up the pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ‘Cover-up University’ goes for broke. We have seen one of the biggest scandals in the history of Cambridge University. The appointment of Jason Arday was misjudged. By itself, this was poor, but not a scandal. There are other lousy Professorial appointments\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t