Jason Arday, a 41-year-old former Cambridge University professor who resigned last week amid plagiarism allegations, has been found dead in south London. Police are treating the death as unexpected but not suspicious.

Emergency services discovered Jason Arday unresponsive at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon. The Metropolitan Police stated that while the death is being treated as unexpected, it is not believed to be suspicious at this time.

Arday, who became Cambridge's youngest black professor at age 37 in 2023, resigned from his position as professor of sociology of education last week following allegations of plagiarism in his academic work. He had consistently denied the plagiarism claims while acknowledging some errors in his early research. Arday attributed certain mistakes to his autism, explaining that he had relied on mimicry to process information during his early career. The controversy intensified following accusations from Nathan Cofnas, a self-defined "race realist" who was dismissed from his own Cambridge role in 2024. An independent investigation by Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday his PhD in 2015, concluded that he had not plagiarised his work.

In his resignation statement, Arday described the scrutiny he faced as extending "far beyond scholarly disagreement" and said the personal cost had become "too great." He emphasised that his resignation should not be interpreted as accepting the narratives surrounding the controversy. His friend and colleague, Professor Kehinde Andrews, described Arday as deeply distressed following his departure, noting that he had withdrawn from public life and lost considerable weight.

Cambridge University and other institutions where Arday worked, including the University of Glasgow and Durham University, expressed shock at his death. Education Secretary Lucy Powell urged people to "remember there are real people with loved ones involved," while critics questioned the intensity of media scrutiny directed at the academic after his resignation. Arday's family released a statement indicating they believed the "campaign of misinformation" had profoundly affected him.