EXCLUSIVE: Jason Arday was targeted in a coordinated campaign by an anti-black race science network with ties to…

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Arday was targeted in a coordinated campaign by an anti-black race science network with ties to Cambridge and pro-Trump billionaire Peter Thiel, whipping up a catalogue of systemic misinformation across the British press 🧵/1 bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/the…

It's becoming better known that the campaign that drove some 249 press articles about Jason Arday was launched by an academic who argues that black people are innately less intelligent. That's the tip of the iceberg. Before this tragedy, most of us in the team had not heard of Arday. But we made a decision not to amplify what seemed to us to be disproportionate personalised attacks. But when we began to look closer at the individuals and organisations involved, the picture cleared. We were looking at a network that we have been reporting on for years. A network that over the last decade has sought to mainstream some of the most dangerous ideas of the 20th century. In this @BylineTimes investigation, we map the network which mobilised to target Arday, and how the attack evolved. It traces back to an active far-right eugenics movement linked to a Nazi foundation set-up in the 1930s. We also interrogated the main claims published across the British press against Arday - that he was a liar, fabulist, fantasist, fraud. We found that a significant number of these claims against Arday are, themselves, speculative, selective, inaccurate and unsustainable if not simply false. This was a national collapse of journalistic standards on a scale virtually without precedent (though, there have been precedents). The extent of confabulation by the British media, left and right, against a young, talented black academic who excelled despite huge challenges, is shocking to behold when seen from the cold light of day. This piece begins to peel away the layers of hyperreality that overtook the British psyche during a summer of drought and wildfires. It cannot in anyway make up for the loss of a life. /2

Nathan Cofnas published the 21 July post that started it: 'DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge'. The vast majority of the articles that attacked Arday over weeks did not mention that Cofnas is an anti-black racist who believes that black people are genetically inferior to white people. Cofnas wrote that in hiring Arday, Cambridge had "grabbed a random black person" and abandoned academic standards. Even before he had examined Arday's PhD, he had dismissed him as "just another DEI hire". Confas believes that inherited racial differences ought to leave black people absent from virtually every elite position in public life outside sport and entertainment. It is a belief he shares with many of the people who would use his material to attack Arday, and which underpins their efforts to mainstream opposition to what they call "DEI". /3

In a 9 August interview with David Starkey, Cofnas said Arday was "completely illiterate mathematically" and "a black person who seems to be, in this case, literally mentally disabled". He said he did not know whether Arday "could do addition". /4 youtube.com/watch?v=C27UXF…

Starkey praised Cofnas for defeating Cambridge's "DEI" system, and said of Arday's resignation: "the reason we are both grinning is that we are enjoying vengeance. Good, honest, straightforward and Christian vengeance… we can rejoice together". Arday was found dead on 14 August. /5

Now the allegations themselves. I went through most of them. The PhD plagiarism claim had already been formally tested. Liverpool John Moores University investigated it last year, after claims by The Times and The Telegraph. /6

LJMU's inquiry found citation defects caused by "honest and reasonable error", compounded by inadequate supervision regarding Arday's learning disabilities. It did not uphold plagiarism. That finding was reached independently of anything Arday himself said about his autism. /7

Arday told The Times that his autism affected how he processed information, and that his early academic work relied heavily on mimicry to make sense of material. He accepted responsibility for mistakes and denied dishonesty. It is plausible that this explains issues of concern found with some of his other academic papers. /8

The "phantom" book. Palgrave Macmillan confirmed it had accepted the proposal for Being Young, Black and Male. Durham University recorded it as a "manuscript in preparation". It was still being described as an upcoming book in 2022. Later biographies mixed and some referred to as if it was already published. Now compare to Arday's colleague in Cambridge - who attacked him on 12 August - Dr James Orr /9

For at least 6 years, public biographies listed James Orr's unpublished book, Being and Eternity, among his existing "publications and policy papers". A 2024 podcast called him its "published author" - Orr did not dispute the characterisation. Orr's Cambridge biography page still lists that unpublished title as "forthcoming, 2022". Here's the thing. Neither case proves dishonesty. Stalled books and recycled biographies are mundane features of academic publishing. And remarkably common. Only one of them became national evidence of fraud. /10

The 30 marathons in 35 days was ridiculed across dozens of articles. Sarah Dittum in The Times, even now after Arday's death, considers it laughable. But it is supported by contemporaneous records, and not a single one of these journalists have offered any basis to believe their claim that it was a lie. Here are some of the links. A January 2010 JustGiving page announced the dates and route before it began. justgiving.com/fundraising/ja… /11

The education press covered it while it was underway - no less than TES /12 tes.com/magazine/archi…

Local press reported its completion /13 richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/8350040.c…

On the £5 million charity fundraising figure, Arday told the Guardian it came from "many fundraising collectives over a two-decade period". He had described the fundraising collectively since 2009, referring to what "we" raised, to being "part of" initiatives, and to "our fundraising projects". Yes in some cases he spoke of the fundraising as "I". There is no clear reason to assume that this was malicious dishonesty as opposed to shorthand sense of one's own role. /14

I analysed the publicly identifiable charities Arday was associated with over 2 decades. Their combined gross income comes to roughly £1.4 billion to £1.5 billion. His £5 million collective claim sits at well under 1% of that. /15

Journalists mocked Arday's talk about his football. But, in fact, Arday did play semi-professional football, which the University of Bath has confirmed in a public statement. /16 x.com/NafeezAhmed/st…

Nels Abbey@nelsabbey · Aug 16, 2026

Not that it ever really mattered, but Jason Arday did actually play semi-pro football as he said he did. And even if he didn't, nothing he did or said warranted the mass-murderer-worthy press hysteria and hounding to a very predictable death that he was subjected to.

On Seven Up, here is what Arday actually said in 2022: "I was part of a programme which doesn't really exist any more, but was called Seven Up at the time." The Telegraph reported that he had said he "appeared" in Michael Apted's series. The story rested on that paraphrase. /17

His own wording points away from the television reading. 63 Up aired in 2019, presented by ITV as part of its 7 Up Collection. Arday later told The Times he meant an informal community initiative supporting black mothers raising children with complex learning needs "like" Seven Up. And the context of his interview bears this out - before and after the discussion is about the support he received from the community. There is no decisive evidence of lying here - and The Telegraph's claim that he had definitively confirmed he took part in a TV show was not clear cut at all. /18

Accounts from former pupils who were in the year above Arday at school were presented simply as testimony from "schoolmates". Their claims that he had spoken, joked or sung were treated as disproving other credible accounts of him, including from school mates in the same class and adults who had worked with him, as effectively non-verbal until he was 11. No consideration was given to the perils of sifting through source testimony on decades old events. /19

Autistic children and those with selective mutism or severe communication difficulties can speak in some settings while remaining largely silent in others. These conflicting recollections were folded into a wider narrative that Arday had fabricated his entire life story. /20

So: an unproven allegation circulated as fact, and "fraud", "fabulist" and "plagiarist" hardened into settled findings about a man. The potential impact of his autism and learning difficulties dropped out of the coverage. Research shows that some autistic people can experience major issues with specific event recognition. It is complex - it shouldn't automatically be assumed to explain inconsistency or error. But in Arday's case, as my article explains, his account of his autism is consistent with this. Not a single journalist bothered to consider that this, rather than deliberate deception, might explain some inconsistencies in his accounts. This is institutionalised ableism. /21

Now the network. Aporia, the magazine at the ideological centre of this, is the public-facing arm of the Human Diversity Foundation: a relaunch of the Nazi-era Pioneer Fund, incorporating its old personnel, assets and publications. Its founder said the aim was to "move the Overton Window" and gain "legitimacy via association". Peter Thiel is connected. He made a secret 5-figure donation to Cambridge via James Orr at the time of Orr's hiring. He sought introductions to Nathan Cofnas and Aporia editor Noah Carl, giving them what Aporia co-founder Emil Kirkegaard called the "Thiel treatment". /22

The Free Speech Union is where the personnel overlap. It supported Cofnas through 2 university inquiries, sponsored his legal action. FSU's founding general secretary Toby Young and Aporia senior editor Noah Carl are co-directors of Skeptics Ltd. James Orr, David Starkey, Quillette editor Claire Lehmann and Aporia contributor Eric Kaufmann all sit on the FSU advisory council. On 10 August, the FSU attacked Arday over complaints he had made to the Met Police about the risks to his mental health from journalistic inquiries. On 12 August, Orr posted: "What terrifies me is if it turns out Jason Arday's DEI qualifications were fake, his DEI chair was fake, his DEI discipline was fake, and his faculty + college were DEI bootcamps." At 5.51am on 14 August, before news broke that Arday had been found dead, Quillette published an essay calling him a "fantasist, fabulist, fraud". A second piece that day defended research into group differences in intelligence, casting Cofnas as its latest persecuted scholar. This was one racial frame, reproduced across race science media, a free speech lobbying outfit, a political magazine, and Reform UK's Head of Policy. /23

At The Sanctuary, a discreet political hub overlooking Westminster Abbey, cryptobillionaire Ben Delo funds office, events and podcasting space. Aporia has an established office and events space there. So does the Cambridge Scrutonian Society, founded by two of James Orr's students with his behind-the-scenes support. Delo gave Reform UK £4 million in early 2026. He also helped fund the Free Speech Union. /24

There's only so much you can compact into an X thread. To understand the details please read the full piece: bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/the… and support our ability to tread where others won't via subscribe.bylinetimes.com END