Folks, I was going to post this as a Substack note, but it was too long. It is out of this newsletter’s wheelhouse in the sense that it is contemporary, but I felt compelled to comment (ie. vent).
Image: Carter G. Woodson, author of the Mis-education of the Negro. at his desk, 1948. Photograph by Robert S. Scurlock, Scurlock Studio. Courtesy of the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. https://www.nps.gov/people/carter-g-woodson.htm
This is not just another controversy for Black scholars but the reality of our predicament because it reveals just how conditional our acceptance is—and how quickly scrutiny becomes weaponized and support evaporates.
In addition to constantly referring to Dr. Arday as Mr. Arday (contrary to standard NYT editorial policy), these two pieces are just plain aggravating. Why is this even featured in The New York Times?
For the same reason Claudine Gay was dismissed as Harvard president: We’re not wanted in those hallowed halls. I guess the diversity haters are happy now that they have ruined the prospects of another promising Black scholar. I really hope Jason Arday finds somewhere people will appreciate his talents.
One of the saddest takeaways from this whole affair is what one Black academic in the UK said to a Guardian reporter:
“Few Black academics are happy to speak about Arday’s case publicly. One academic said: ‘I can’t say anything on the record or I’ll be the right’s next target. The [right] have set their sights on pushing Black people out from all these institutions.’”
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, gives Black scholars more than they are due. If anything, EVERY colon, comma, quotation mark, and block quote has to be in order for Black academics to move forward. And it has to go back years and years because you never know when some Bitter Barry or Betty will read of the accomplishments or awards attributed to a Black scholar, get up in their feefees, run to Turnitin or Pangram and start running through your dissertation or article you wrote for the student newspaper as a freshman.
This is because of the circumstances in which Black academics find themselves. Despite the public rhetoric, academia is not liberal. It is a profoundly hierarchical and conservative institution by nature. Some of the most racist ideas and, let’s be honest, people reside in academia. Anyone who tells you otherwise is NOT in academia.
The second thing is—well, I’ll let Audre Lorde say it:
“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
This passage comes from Audre Lorde’s speech “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” which she delivered on October 29, 1979, at the Second Sex Conference at New York University.
We will never convince the master to give up his privilege. We have to develop our own spaces. As the great Frederick Douglass said:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”.
Douglass, Frederick. Frederick Douglass Papers: Speech, Article, and Book File, -1894; Speeches and Articles by Douglass, -1894; 1857, Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass; One on West India Emancipation . . and the Other on the Dred Scott Decision. 1857. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/mss1187900388/.
Finally, it was simply asinine for The Times of London to run an AI check on Jason Arday’s letter of resignation. It was looking for likes and comments by kicking a man when he was already down.
In 1915, Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and, months later, The Journal of Negro History, precisely because the white-dominated historical profession ignored, excluded, distorted, or told outright lies about Black life and history. Rather than being considered primary actors in shaping history, Black people were treated principally as problems to be resolved or as products of slavery and Reconstruction..
I think i’m going to give Dr. Woodson another read.
Intellectual Map
Douglass, Frederick. Two Speeches, by Frederick Douglass: One on West India Emancipation, Delivered at Canandaigua, Aug. 4th, and the Other on the Dred Scott Decision. Rochester, NY: C. P. Dewey, 1857. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/mss1187900388/.
Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Speech delivered at the Second Sex Conference, New York University, October 29, 1979. Archives of Women’s Political Communication, Iowa State University. https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/communication/masters-tools-will-never-dismantle-masters-house-oct-29-1979.
Osuh, Chris. “‘Old Racist Wine in a New Bottle’: Black Academics Respond to Jason Arday Affair.” The Guardian, August 8, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/08/black-academics-respond-to-jason-arday-affair.
Schuessler, Jennifer, and Alexandra Alter. “Questions Mount Over a Star Scholar’s Life and Career.” New York Times, August 3, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/books/jason-arday-cambridge-plagiarism.html.
Scurlock, Robert S. Carter G. Woodson at Desk. 1948. Silver gelatin photograph. Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905–1994, Box 1.1A4. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. https://www.nps.gov/people/carter-g-woodson.htm
“Jason Arday’s Resignation Letter AI-Written, Detection Tools Suggest.” The Times, August 7, 2026. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/jason-arday-resignation-letter-ai-generated-ztdxbqhc9.
Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-Education of the Negro. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1933.
Add Kerri Greenidge to this list. It feels like Black academics are being hunted. Absolutely disgusting.
Great reminder of our history