By now, you know the story. A man named Jason Arday was hired by Cambridge to be its “youngest Black* professor.”

Cambridge hired Arday in the wake of the George Floyd death, a tragic death that had as much impact on Great Britain as on Minnesota. What we learned from the George Floyd episode was not that we should treat or incarcerate mentally disturbed, substance-abusing criminals. No, that lesson was too much for those Days of Wokeness.

What we learned instead was that anytime a person dies in police custody, the police must have murdered him – if he was Black.

Just as rebels holler “To the barricades,” the DEI advocates hollered, “To the reparations!”

The reparations were not to take the form of putting the likes of George Floyd into in an expensive institution for treatment, rehabilitation and, if necessary, punishment. The reparations were instead to take the form of putting a person who the DEI advocates view as someone just like George Floyd (to the DEI advocates, they all look the same) into a professorship at Cambridge. Call it the George Floyd Chair.

It didn’t matter whether the Black person was ever a victim of slavery or if his ancestors ever were. What mattered was that the person was Black.

And so, it was no problem that the George Floyd Chair was filled with Jason Arday, even though his parents immigrated to London from Ghana and there is no evidence that he or any ancestor suffered slavery (if they did, it was the Black-on-Black kind).

Arday was a piece of work. Outside the classroom, he bragged that he once ran 600 miles in 6 days. As if that was not enough, he once ran 30 marathons – a 26-mile race – in 33 days. In his spare time, he said, he raised $6 million dollars for charity in the span of a few weeks.

He said he barely spoke until he was 11. He suffered two brain tumors.

Inside the classroom, he was touted as brilliant. Any claims to the contrary were dismissed as “racist.”

Yes, there was much ado about the phenom named Jason Arday. It turned out to be much ado about nothing. I was all lies.

There were no brain tumors. He spoke at the usual age. He apparently ran no marathons, much less 30 in 33 days. The $6 million he single-handedly raised for charity in a short time was actually raised over a long period of time by a charity group he was loosely affiliated with.

The thing that did him in, however, was not his superhuman fabulism. It was his academic fraud. It was discovered that his PhD thesis contained over 100 instances of plagiarism. Some of the plagiarism was page upon page of exact copying.

The initial reaction by Cambridge was of course, “More racism! By racist critics!” Arday himself literally called the police when journalists sent him emails asking for his comment. (The police belatedly dismissed his complaint.)

Despite the stonewalling by both Cambridge and Arday, his plagiarism was too stark to be ignored. Whole pages were cut and pasted, including the grammatical errors. Cambridge finally announced that it was undertaking an investigation.

Arday resigned from his prestigious and tenured position later that day. Cambridge must find another Black man for the George Floyd Chair.

Yesterday, this story went from amusing to bemusing. Arday was found dead in London. Police say there is no evidence of foul play. That’s police talk for suicide. Although I condemn Arday’s fraud and his attacks on critics who sought to point it out, part of me feels bad for him and his family.

Here’s who I don’t feel bad for: Cambridge.  

It is often observed that affirmative action may feel good to the advocates, but it does no favors to the beneficiaries. The beneficiary is put into a position they’re not ready for, a position where they are bound to fail. Indeed, the failure rate for affirmative action Black students is significantly higher than for ordinary white students.

Lies are compounded by more lies. Soon, a little resume exaggeration balloons into “I ran 30 marathons in 33 days!” Soon, the Black person is no longer a person, he’s just Black. 

Cambridge is not full of dummies. The fabulism claimed by Arday was a red flag, and the plagiarism must have been an open secret. Cambridge didn’t care, for they had their Black.

Cambridge’s charges of “racism!” against accomplished academics who raised good faith questions was a coverup, and one that potentially damaged those academics.

All this was for Cambridge to feel good about itself, to fill the George Floyd Chair.

Cambridge, you have blood on your hands.

*Most Black people want an upper case “B” and so that’s what I give them. It costs me nothing. Most white people want a lower case “w” and so that’s what I give them. That, too, costs me nothing. As for the whole ridiculous controversy, I have bigger fish to fry.