Firstly, BLAM UK want to say that we are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday, the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship at the University of Cambridge. We send our deepest love and solidarity to his family, friends and everyone grieving this devastating loss. Professor Arday was more than a title, headline or public figure. He was a human being who was deeply loved. Rest In Power, Professor Jason Arday.
In 2023, Cambridge celebrated Arday’s appointment as Professor of Sociology of Education. At 37, he became the youngest Black person ever appointed to a professorship there. Cambridge presented him as a scholar of race, inequality and education and highlighted his autism and the barriers he had overcome.
Consider the space he entered. In 2024/25 there were only around 270 Black professors across UK universities, approximately 1 per cent of all professors.
Black people are repeatedly taught that excellence will save us. Get the qualifications. Enter the institution. Become undeniable.
But racism has never required Black mediocrity.
A Black person can reach Cambridge and still encounter anti Blackness. A title cannot regulate a traumatised nervous system. Prestige cannot manufacture safety. Representation without protection is not liberation.
Years before his death, Arday himself researched the psychological cost of racism in universities. His 2021 paper, No one can see me cry, drew on the experiences of 40 racially minoritised university staff and described how racism, marginalisation, isolation and inadequate culturally informed support affected mental health. He wrote about the “continual and residual trauma” experienced by racially minoritised academics.
We should sit with that title.
No one can see me cry.
How many Black professionals are living some version of those words right now?
The Telegraph framed an early story as “Cambridge’s diversity poster boy in plagiarism row” and later published a piece about the “downfall of Cambridge’s diversity poster boy”. The story rapidly expanded beyond disputed academic passages into his childhood, charity work, teaching, professional appointments and personal history.
According to Steven Barnett, British newspapers published 289 stories about Arday in just 22 days, with almost two thirds appearing after he had resigned. Cambridge’s Chancellor Chris Smith has since said it was possible to defend academic integrity while refusing to participate in what he called a “racist feeding frenzy”.
This is what we mean when we describe what followed as a public media lynching.
Not a literal lynching. Not a claim about the cause of Jason’s death. A political description of a racialised tradition in which a Black person is turned from human being into public object, their alleged failures endlessly circulated, their entire life opened for inspection and their destruction consumed as spectacle.
How many Black lives must be shattered before Britain confronts its anti Blackness?
Racial trauma is real
Racism does not simply offend. It can injure psychological wellbeing.
Research in Britain has repeatedly associated racial discrimination with worse mental health. Longitudinal UK research has found links between experiences of racial discrimination and later psychological distress, while broader evidence connects racism with anxiety, depression, fear, isolation and other forms of psychological harm.
Here at BLAM UK, We have made this argument before. Racism is a mental health issue. Black mental health cannot be separated from workplace discrimination, institutional racism, over policing, social isolation and the pressure to survive systems that were not designed around our safety.
Now imagine adding mass public scrutiny.
Imagine waking up and seeing strangers debate your intelligence, your childhood, your career, your disability and whether you ever deserved to be where you were.
For a Black autistic person, race and disability cannot simply be separated into neat compartments. Research on Black autistic experiences remains shamefully limited, but emerging work explicitly recognises that Black autistic people can encounter distinctive forms of marginalisation at the intersection of racism and ableism.
None of this tells us what Jason privately thought or felt.
It tells us why care should never have been an afterthought.
We must tell the truth about our own spaces
Radical Black politics demands that we look inward too. We cannot condemn the racial cruelty of British institutions while pretending harm cannot be reproduced inside Black spaces.
The Shade Borough, a major Black British media platform, published stories amplifying increasingly personal allegations about Arday, including claims from a former schoolmate questioning his childhood account and allegations from former students about his teaching and supervision. After Arday’s death, the platform issued a public statement amid significant criticism of its coverage.
This should prompt something deeper than another online pile on. Professor Arday could have been our brother. Our father. Our uncle. Our friend.
Screens make cruelty dangerously easy. A trending name becomes content. Comments become entertainment. A human life disappears behind an avatar. We cannot resist racist institutions while recreating their capacity for humiliation among ourselves.
Collective care is Black resistance
Black radical politics cannot begin at the funeral. It cannot be limited to flowers, hashtags and powerful statements once somebody is gone. Our politics must ask a harder question.
How do we keep each other well while we are still here?
We check in when someone is being publicly attacked. We interrupt dehumanising conversations. We refuse to make Black pain entertainment. We create Black led spaces where vulnerability does not become weakness. We take Black Mental Health seriously. We organise practical support. We ask someone how they are coping and stay long enough to hear the real answer.
That is not softness.
That is resistance.
BLAM UK’s own racial wellness work recognises the necessity of Black led spaces for healing, because Black people are so often expected to carry racism, pressure and trauma silently.
We should remember Professor Jason Arday not only because he entered Cambridge, but because he was a Black human being whose life was bigger than Cambridge.
His humanity was never dependent on perfection.
Neither is ours.
We cannot continue showing up only after tragedy.
Protect Black minds while they are here.
Community care, love and empathy are Black resistance.
Mental health support
This article discusses racism, mental health and death. Please pause and seek support if you need it.
In the UK, Samaritans can be reached free, day or night, on 116 123. For urgent mental health help you can contact your GP or call NHS 111 and select the mental health option. If you or somebody else is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E. Black Minds Matter UK also provides mental health information and culturally relevant resources, although its therapy service is currently paused.
BLAM UK CIC 