Homerton College Backs Lord Woolley Amid Mounting Pressure Following Jason Arday's Death

By: Euen Herbert-Small

Assistant Editor

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Homerton College, University of Cambridge has issued a public statement of support for its Principal, Lord Simon Woolley, as scrutiny of his position intensifies in the weeks following the death of Professor Jason Arday.

Posted to Instagram by the college, the statement praises Lord Woolley's leadership since his appointment in 2021, citing his "commitment to widening participation, academic excellence and an inclusive College community" as reflecting values "central to Homerton's mission." It goes on to confirm that his appointment "followed the College's established governance and appointment processes" and that he continues to serve "with the confidence and support of the College's leadership and Governing Body."

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The statement directly acknowledges the toll of recent weeks, noting that Lord Woolley "supported [Arday] in the midst of relentless media coverage" following the professor's death, and that "recent public discussion" has placed "professional and personal pressures" on Lord Woolley himself. It closes by reaffirming the college's commitment to "fairness, respect and dignity" for its community.

Professor Arday, who became Cambridge's youngest-ever Black professor in 2023, resigned from his post at Jesus College in early August after swirling allegations of plagiarism and questions over his academic background, which he denied. He was found dead at his home in Battersea, London on 15 August, aged 41. A statement issued on behalf of his family described a "campaign of sustained abuse" waged against him since his appointment.

Lord Woolley, who has led Homerton since October 2021 and founded the campaign group Operation Black Vote, spoke at the Trafalgar Square vigil for Arday and called publicly for an investigation into what he described as a "vicious media onslaught." That intervention has since drawn scrutiny of its own.

On Monday, The Spectator published a hit-piece article by Andrew Gilligan headlined "Simon Woolley is not fit to lead a Cambridge college," which questioned aspects of Lord Woolley's public biography, revisited his past association with former mayoral adviser Lee Jasper, and argued his appointment to Homerton was itself part of a wider pattern of unsuitable Cambridge appointments. JamRadio published its own response to the piece on 31 August, arguing that Gilligan's case rested on "loaded language, the insinuation of guilt by association and a grievance nearly two decades old" rather than any assessment of Lord Woolley's actual record at Homerton.

Homerton's statement never names the Spectator or Gilligan directly, and it doesn't engage with any of the specific claims in his piece. But the timing of the official statement, arriving within days of the Spectator's article and the wider Telegraph coverage of Lord Woolley's "media onslaught" comments and the wording. The line that "Lord Woolley's appointment as Principal followed the College's established governance and appointment processes, and he continues to serve with the confidence and support of the College's leadership and Governing Body" reads as a direct answer to Gilligan's central claim that Woolley is unfit for the role, even without naming him. A seemingly reasonable inference from the sequence of events rather than something the statement confirms outright.

The wider comparison

While Homerton has now put out a formal institutional statement of backing for its own Principal, complete with a reaffirmation of governance process and Governing Body confidence, no equivalent statement was issued on behalf of Professor Arday from his own college, [Jesus] before his death. Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor did issue a brief statement of condolence after Arday died, but nothing resembling this kind of proactive, institutional show of support arrived while the pressure on him was building.

Some of that difference is structural, while Professor Arday was a fellow of Jesus College, not Homerton, the responsibility for backing him publicly would have sat elsewhere. But several commentators, including in a widely shared essay published this week, have drawn the same parallel Homerton itself gestures toward in its statement: two Black men in senior Cambridge positions, both subjected to intense and rapid public scrutiny within weeks of each other, with markedly different institutional responses.

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