Ex-student claims professor Arday said she had ‘white privilege’ after she asked for feedback on low grade

A former student of Professor Jason Arday has claimed he accused her of having ‘white privilege’ after she asked for feedback on a low grade.

The woman said she was taught by the former Cambridge academic at Roehampton University in 2018, where she claims his classes were ‘terrible’.

She said he was often late for lectures, failed to prepare students properly for essays and turned on her when she questioned his marking. Her allegations were made in an anonymous piece for the website Unherd, which said it had verified her identity.

Cambridge University launched an investigation last week after fellow academics accused Mr Arday of copying others’ work and inventing some of his previous academic posts.

He resigned from his role at Cambridge, saying the ‘personal cost’ of the furore had been ‘too great’, and cancelled a series of events to promote his upcoming memoir, Great And Unfortunate Things.

The former student’s Unherd piece, published yesterday, said: ‘For me, the real surprise is that it didn’t all come out sooner…

‘I can honestly describe Arday’s teaching as terrible. He rarely used the PowerPoint slides.

‘Instead, he usually sat casually on a desk, giving his generalised views on racism without ever referring to any academic theories.’

She said he had ‘failed’ his students, most of whom were from ethnic minority backgrounds and were the first in their families to go to university.

He would ‘ramble about Tinie Tempah or Eminem’ and how ‘white people were guilty of every kind of prejudice’, she said.

But she added: ‘It gradually dawned on us that we were learning nothing of substance, and that much of his talk was nonsense.’

She also tells of a fellow student who came to answer an essay question and realised she had nothing in her notes from Mr Arday’s lectures that she could use.

When the writer herself got a mark lower than expected – 70 per cent – she went to Mr Arday for feedback.

She wrote: ‘Suddenly, his friendly, confident demeanour changed. I now saw a side of him I’d never seen before: angry, but also scared.

‘Arday implied that I was racist, and said that the only reason I wasn’t happy with 70 per cent was due to my “white privilege”.

‘He was clearly upset at being questioned, and I ended the meeting as quickly as possible.’

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), originally signed the letter two weeks ago on the Good Law Project website.

The ‘solidarity letter’ claimed there was a ‘smear campaign’ against the former Cambridge University academic and allegations against him of plagiarism were ‘entirely false’.

Mr Kebede, who experienced racism as a child and has championed anti-racist activism within his union, is still featured on the list of signatories.

However, yesterday the NEU issued the clarification: ‘As a trade unionist, Daniel Kebede fundamentally believes that where questions are raised about an individual’s professional conduct, that person has a right to due process.

‘Daniel Kebede signed the statement on the information provided to him at the time.

‘In light of the new information that has since emerged, he would have hoped that the authors of the statement would have presented a different statement. One appealing for a fair and transparent investigation.’

Three academics have already had their names removed from the open letter – Sonita Alleyne, the first woman to lead Jesus College, where Mr Arday worked; Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge; and Ricardo Sabates Aysa, a professor of education and international development