Why the accusations against those attending Professor Jason Arday’s vigil made me angry and the powerful networks that back eugenics deserve our scrutiny
I went to bed angry last night.
Just as I was going to bed, I dipped into WhatsApp to see whether there were any messages I needed to answer—such is my addiction to social media!
Within the space of a minute, I received two forwarded messages about Professor Jason Arday that made me angry. They contained the views of two people I have regarded as leading Black thinkers and activists: Professors Lez Henry and Gus John.
In a video, they described people like me who attended Professor Jason Arday’s vigil in Trafalgar Square as “disgusting”, “parasites” and “vultures”. They suggested that we had participated in a rally against the media without consulting Professor Jason Arday’s family. In an Instagram post, Professor Lez Henry said: “This business about a vigil is, in my opinion, absolutely disgusting, because his family should be allowed to grieve.”
I take issue with them on two grounds.
One: the vigil took place with the family’s knowledge and participation.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the family’s MP, read a statement on their behalf. Jermain Jackman sang Coldplay’s Fix You at the request of Professor Jason Arday’s mother. The family’s involvement does not prevent anyone from questioning whether a public vigil was appropriate. But it directly contradicts the suggestion that those who attended had acted without consulting them or against their wishes.
The family had lost a son, brother, husband, father and loved one. Those of us who attended went to stand alongside them, remember Professor Jason Arday’s humanity and express our solidarity. To describe us as “parasites” and “vultures” was derisive, hurtful and unfounded. I take those accusations personally.
Two: this is the root of my anger and why I am writing this post.
By attacking those who gathered to protest the treatment of Professor Jason Arday, Professors Lez Henry and Gus John risk diverting attention from the people, publications and institutions that initiated and amplified the scrutiny Professor Jason Arday faced.
Whatever their intention, their accusations discredit collective opposition to that campaign and play directly into the hands of those who want the vigil dismissed as opportunism.
Let me explain.
The story that triggered the intense scrutiny of Professor Jason Arday was reported to have been broken in July by Nathan Cofnas. Cofnas endorses a form of scientific racial realism: the belief that humanity can be divided into biologically meaningful racial populations and that inherited differences help explain inequalities between them.
Cofnas was not operating in isolation. He sits within an interconnected ecosystem of academics, publications, political organisations and wealthy patrons promoting arguments about race, intelligence and heredity.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has cultivated ties to several people and institutions within this ecosystem: Cambridge professor James Orr, through whom Thiel reportedly offered a donation to Cambridge; Orr’s wider Cambridge circle; Quillette, which published attacks on Professor Jason Arday; and, directly, both Cofnas and Aporia senior editor Noah Carl.
Orr helped connect this intellectual infrastructure to politics. As Reform UK’s Head of Policy and an adviser to the Free Speech Union, he has brought figures associated with Aporia into the national-conservative movement.
These relationships also converge physically at The Sanctuary, a right-wing hub in Westminster. Aporia and the Orr-backed Cambridge Scrutonian Society reportedly occupy separate offices there, provided by cryptocurrency billionaire Ben Delo. Delo donated £4 million to Reform UK in early 2026 and has also sponsored the Free Speech Union.
These connections do not, by themselves, prove that everyone involved coordinated a single campaign against Jason. But they show that Cofnas was not simply an isolated academic raising detached questions. He forms part of a broader network linking race-focused intellectual activism, sympathetic media platforms, Cambridge conservative circles, technology wealth and Reform UK politics.
Figures and publications within this ecosystem subjected Professor Jason Arday’s scholarship, career and life story to sustained scrutiny. Allegations of plagiarism, which Professor Jason Arday rejected and which an earlier university investigation did not uphold, were amplified alongside challenges to his achievements and personal history. The scale and tone of the coverage also raised questions about whether Jason was subjected to a standard applied equally to other academics.
That is the context in which the vigil took place. It was not simply a rally “to call out the media”. I was there along with an estimated 30,000 others as an expression of grief, solidarity and concern about the racialised structures surrounding the treatment of a Black, autistic academic.
The Epstein files provide a separate illustration of the wider mechanism at issue: the ability of immense private wealth to purchase access to scientific authority.
The files document Epstein’s access to influential scientists and thinkers, including Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist; George Church, the Harvard Medical School geneticist and pioneer of genomics and synthetic biology; and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, the neuroscientist and former co-director of Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behaviour Institute.
Appearing in those records does not, by itself, establish involvement in Epstein’s crimes, endorsement of white supremacy or membership of a single ideological network. Nor should contact automatically be confused with complicity.
What the records do reveal is how an oligarch could use money, prestige and access to cultivate relationships within the scientific elite, even after his conviction. Epstein’s longstanding interest in genetics, heredity and eugenics makes the willingness of respected institutions and individuals to grant him access particularly worrying.
Peter Thiel’s appearance in the Epstein records does not, of course, prove that the Epstein network and the Cofnas-Aporia network were one coordinated project. But his presence in both worlds illustrates a broader problem: enormous private fortunes can purchase proximity to scientific authority, support preferred intellectual movements and exercise influence without meaningful democratic accountability.
We should therefore investigate these relationships carefully and transparently. We must distinguish documented evidence from inference, and connection from coordination. But we must not allow demands for perfect proof to prevent legitimate scrutiny of how oligarchic money shapes research, institutions and politics. That scrutiny must be pursued by the press, examined by the relevant institutions and regulators and, where the public interest requires it, investigated by Parliament.
We cannot allow discredited ideas about racial hierarchy to divide us. We must expose the money behind them and challenge its insidious and divisive influence on science and society.
We can begin by calling out oligarchic funding wherever we encounter it. Ideas about inherent racial inequality must not be allowed to masquerade as accepted science simply because wealthy patrons can finance the research, publications and institutions that promote them.
That is why I attended the vigil.
I went to honour Professor Jason Arday, to stand with his grieving family and to join thousands of others in saying that his life could not be reduced to allegations, headlines and controversy.
Calling those people “parasites” and “vultures” does not protect Professor Jason Aday’s family. It attacks people who gathered with the family’s approval and shifts attention away from the powerful interests whose role demands proper scrutiny.
We should be challenging that power—not turning on one another.
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