DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Worst Academic Scandal in 817 Years!

This is, quite likely, the worst academic scandal of all time. There have been other academic scandals over the centuries, but nothing quite like this one. It’s the worst academic scandal not only because it indicts one of the greatest universities in the world, but because it indicts all higher education in the English-speaking world! The Arday case is the symbol and culmination of the kind of intellectual and moral rot that has been seeping into higher education for sixty-plus years.

If Cambridge University—an 817-year-old institution—is to be saved (and it’s an open question as to whether it can or even should be saved), all those administrators and faculty involved in hiring, promoting, and defending Jason Arday should be fired immediately. Nothing less will do if Cambridge is to survive.

The great tragedy of the L’Affaire Arday is that there may very well be scores if not hundreds of similar cases around the English-speaking world.

Indeed: Meet Farah Ahmed, Jason Arday’s colleague.

Conquest's Third Law Of Politics: "The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."

You really don't need more than that to explain why Cambridge University does the things it does. https://t.co/nBH5nnE8zX

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) August 11, 2026

The Spectator’s tweet concludes, “Ahmed has explicitly attacked ‘western education’ as a ‘threat’ to Muslims, condemned democracy and integration, and criticised British schools for teaching pupils that child marriage is wrong. During her time at Cambridge, she has written that the Islamic concept of education is sharply opposed to ‘gaining literacy and numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications’. These statements are part of her long record of bigoted, extremist and separatist views on education.”