Tens of thousands of people filled Trafalgar Square on Monday evening for a vigil in honour of Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor whose death has sparked a wave of grief and fury across England.
Arday, who made history as one of the youngest Black professors ever appointed at Cambridge, had been the target of a sustained online campaign driven by far-right and rightwing figures. That campaign is now facing intense scrutiny over the role it played in the events leading up to his death.
The vigil drew a huge and emotional crowd, with many holding candles and signs as speakers addressed the scale of what had happened. For those present, the night was about honouring a man whose academic achievements were remarkable, but also about confronting something darker that has been allowed to grow in public life.
The origins of the campaign against Arday have been traced back to a figure who openly describes himself as a “race realist” and who has stated that, in his ideal world, Black people would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside sport and entertainment. That kind of ideology, once confined to the fringes, found its way into mainstream online spaces and was amplified by accounts and outlets with large followings.
What followed was a pile-on that many are now describing as a coordinated witch-hunt. Arday was subjected to relentless public attacks, with his background and qualifications picked apart in bad faith by people whose motivations had little to do with honest scrutiny and everything to do with pushing a nativist agenda.
The tragedy has forced a difficult conversation about where the line sits between legitimate journalism and participation in a culture war. Some of the coverage of Arday crossed into territory that, whatever its intentions, fed directly into the far-right narrative targeting him. That is something the press will need to reckon with honestly in the days and weeks ahead.
For many in the crowd at Trafalgar Square, the anger is raw and it is not going anywhere. People who had never met Arday stood alongside colleagues, friends and fellow academics, united by a shared sense that something has gone badly wrong in how public figures, particularly Black public figures, are treated when they step into the spotlight.
Arday had spoken openly in the past about his own struggles, including a diagnosis of autism and the challenges he faced in education before going on to reach the highest levels of academia. His story was one of extraordinary perseverance. To many, that made the campaign against him feel even more vicious.
Calls are now growing for social media platforms to take more responsibility for the way coordinated harassment campaigns are allowed to operate. Critics argue that the tools exist to identify and shut down pile-ons of this nature, but that platforms have consistently failed to act until it is too late.
There are also questions being asked of public figures and commentators who amplified the attacks on Arday, some of whom have offered little in the way of reflection since his death. The silence from certain quarters has been noticed.
England has been here before. The debate about racism in public life, about who gets to hold prominent positions and about how those people are treated when they do, is not new. But the death of Jason Arday has given that debate a devastating and human face.
The vigil in Trafalgar Square was many things at once. It was a farewell, a protest and a demand that this not be allowed to happen again. Whether those in positions of power, in politics, in the media and in the tech industry, choose to listen remains to be seen.