More than 31,000 people, including several MPs, have signed a petition urging U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham to hold a public inquiry into alleged media harassment of the late academic Jason Arday, the organisers said Sunday (August 16, 2026).

Also read | Jason Arday, former Cambridge University professor at centre of plagiarism scandal, found dead

The petition was launched by the Good Law Project activist group after Arday, who was appointed three years ago as the youngest-ever black professor at Cambridge University, was found dead on Friday.

The project had been supporting Arday since he resigned earlier this month from the University and as a fellow of Jesus College after both institutions launched investigations into allegations of plagiarism and fabricating or exaggerating his life story.

“There cannot be any doubt that Dr. Arday’s tragic death was the direct, foreseeable and foreseen result of press harassment,” the Good Law Project wrote on its website.

“A significant element in that harassment was the colour of his skin,” it said, adding “there cannot be any doubt that racism lay at the heart of this story”.

The allegations against Arday, 41, had received widespread media coverage from the U.K. press after another academic — self-defined “race realist” Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 — said in July he found numerous instances of plagiarism in the professor’s work.

British media and right-wing commentators seized on the row, claiming Arday, who disputed the allegations, had unfairly benefited from diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies.

Warnings of ‘suicide risk’

In a letter published when he resigned on August 5, Arday said the move was “the only way” to end a “difficult period”, but should not be “mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me”.

Following the shock news of Arday’s death on Friday (August 14), which police are not treating as suspicious, his family and friends have denounced “a campaign of sustained abuse” since his 2023 appointment.

Other friends have said he was vulnerable, given Arday has written extensively about being diagnosed as autistic as a child, and not speaking until he was 11.

Simon Woolley, Arday’s former mentor and a leading member of staff at Cambridge University, told the BBC on Sunday (August 16) that he and a group of friends had seen him last Monday (August 10).

Arday “said he felt hounded to death, his words, that he couldn’t see a way out”, Mr. Woolley said.

“On that day, we saw a man half his body weight and desperate beyond belief.”

The Good Law Project said “many of the signatories” to its campaign had “warned multiple media outlets privately that their relentless pursuit of Dr. Arday risked his suicide”.

A vigil for the late academic is set to be held in London’s Trafalgar Square on Monday evening (August 17).

A fundraising campaign to support his family has already raised almost £89,000.

British academic Jason Arday, who resigned from the University of Cambridge last week amid a high-profile plagiarism storm that featured racism claims, was found dead on Friday (August 14, 2026), U.K. media outlets reported.

Arday, 41, died after being found unresponsive at an address in south London on Friday (August 14, 2026) afternoon, Sky News and other media said, citing a statement from the capital’s Metropolitan Police Service.

The scandal erupted after some academics and media reports accused Arday, who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023, of plagiarising parts of his doctoral thesis.

The allegations have been seized on by British right-wing newspapers and commentators, who claim that he unfairly benefited from diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies.

Arday resigned from his Cambridge posts on August 5, shortly after the prestigious British institution announced a probe into the various accusations against him.

In a letter posted online, he said that quitting was “the only way” to end a “difficult period”, but insisted the decision should not be “mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me”.

The university’s top administrator on Wednesday (August 12, 2026) had called Arday’s alleged wrongdoing “an aberration” and vowed a thorough investigation, while insisting it should not be used “to cast aspersions” on other academics from ethnic minority backgrounds.

His memoir — Great and Unfortunate Things — had been published in the United States the previous day, ahead of its planned release in Britain later this month. It has also attracted scrutiny.

A statement issued by London’s Metropolitan Police late on Friday (August 14, 2026) did not confirm the dead man’s identity.

It said officers were called by the London Ambulance Service “following a report that a man had been found unresponsive inside a property” in the Battersea neighbourhood.

“Sadly, a 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene,” it added, noting his next-of-kin had been informed.

“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.

“The case is being investigated by officers from the Met’s Central South Command Unit. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”