사진 확대

Jason Aday (41), a former educational sociology professor who became the youngest black person to overcome autism and dyslexia to become a professor at Cambridge University in the UK, was found dead at home amid plagiarism controversy.

According to the British daily Guardian, police were dispatched after receiving a report from the paramedics on the afternoon of the 14th (local time) to confirm that Aday died at her home in south London. The police judged that there were no signs of murder.

"After accepting the Cambridge University professorship, Jason has been continuously insulted by those who do nothing to undermine him for more than three years," his family said in a statement. "I will not comment other than a request to stop the continued harassment against Jason and his family."

Adey resigned as a professor shortly after Cambridge University announced on the 5th that it would investigate cheating.

Born to an immigrant family from Ghana, he was appointed Cambridge University's youngest black professor in February 2023 when he was 37. However, the suspicion of plagiarism in his thesis was centered on the academic community, and recently, media reports followed.

The media raised suspicions that he also inflated his philanthropic performance, which he completed 30 marathons in 35 days and raised 5.5 million pounds (about 10.6 billion won) by running 600 miles (about 966 kilometers) in six days. There were even suspicions that the experience of autism and dyslexia, which was not able to speak until the age of 11 and read and write until the age of 18, was fake.

Thanks to this life-threatening experience, Aday also played as a torchbearer at the 2012 London Olympics.

"Jason Arday was a victim of a malicious public disgrace that no one else would have ever experienced in the same position," London Mayor Sadiq Khan said. "His death is a tragedy, but it should be a wake-up call for all of us."

Some point out that a famous black professor with autism cannot avoid academic verification, but rather, Cambridge University spent him to advocate the principle of diversity.

Professor Priyambada Gopal, who studies postcolonialism at the University of Cambridge, said of Adey's professorship, "It may be a response to criticism that there are too few black professors, but I don't think we can take a shortcut to these problems."

Simon Barron Cohen, director of the Institute for Autism at the University of Cambridge, claimed that he was a victim of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policy verification and that "all media outlets intensively attacked him to drive him to be a fraud."

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham called it "a tragedy in many ways," adding, "Now is not the time to make a hasty judgment. It's time to reflect on how things came to this," he said.