URGENT OPEN LETTER TO STORMZY & THE #MERKY FOUNDATION

Subject: Urgent Request to Review and Pause the #Merky Foundation’s Funding Partnership with the University of Cambridge Following the Death of Professor Jason Arday

Dear Michael and the #Merky Foundation Team,

I am writing with profound sadness following the death of Professor Jason Arday, but also with an urgent request for you to reconsider the #Merky Foundation’s continuing financial partnership with the University of Cambridge.

I recognise what the Stormzy Scholarship has achieved. It was created to open doors that historically remained closed to too many young Black people, and Cambridge itself acknowledges the significant contribution the programme has made to increasing access for Black British students. (Undergraduate Study Cambridge)

But access cannot be the end of the conversation.

What happens to Black people once they walk through those doors matters just as much.

And following Jason Arday's death, I believe there are safeguarding questions that Cambridge must answer.

Jason's vulnerability was not invisible.

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, who knew Jason personally and spoke with him on the morning of his death, has publicly described Jason as having been a vulnerable child, vulnerable teenager and vulnerable adult who needed safeguarding, support and reasonable adjustments. He referred specifically to Jason's childhood autism diagnosis, language delay and learning differences. (The Guardian)

Those vulnerabilities were also part of the extraordinary public story surrounding Jason's achievements.

He overcame immense barriers.

He became a professor.

He became a prominent Black academic.

He became a symbol of possibility.

His success was celebrated.

His story was amplified.

His achievements became part of a wider institutional narrative about progress and inclusion.

But safeguarding is not truly tested when everything is going well.

Safeguarding is tested when everything goes wrong.

When Jason became the subject of allegations and extraordinary public scrutiny, he did not suddenly cease to be vulnerable.

That was precisely when safeguarding mattered most.

His family has described what happened to him as a sustained campaign of abuse and misinformation. Other prominent voices have subsequently raised concerns about the nature and intensity of the public treatment he experienced. The Prime Minister has called his death a “tragedy on so many levels” and urged reflection on how matters reached this point. (The Guardian)

I therefore believe Cambridge must answer a very simple question:

Where were the safeguards?

Who was responsible for Jason's welfare during this period?

Was his vulnerability reassessed as the pressure intensified?

What reasonable adjustments and wellbeing protections were available?

Was the cumulative effect of professional loss, reputational damage and sustained public scrutiny recognised?

Who was responsible for identifying escalation?

What intervention mechanisms existed?

And when it became apparent that a vulnerable person was struggling under extraordinary pressure, who owned the safeguarding response?

These questions do not require anyone to prejudge the academic-integrity allegations made against Jason.

Academic integrity matters.

Evidence matters.

Accountability matters.

If allegations are made, they should be properly and independently investigated.

But accountability and safeguarding are not opposites.

A person under investigation can require safeguarding.

A person facing allegations can require safeguarding.

A person facing professional consequences can require safeguarding.

A person at the centre of public controversy can require safeguarding.

Indeed, those may be precisely the circumstances in which safeguarding becomes most urgent.

And that brings me to the #Merky Foundation.

Your scholarship exists because you recognised something enormously important: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.

Cambridge currently states that the Stormzy Scholarship supports Black UK students and that the #Merky Foundation continues to fund places within the programme. (Undergraduate Study Cambridge)

Those students are being encouraged not merely to attend Cambridge, but to trust Cambridge.

To believe that they belong there.

To believe that their potential will be nurtured there.

To believe that an institution benefiting from their brilliance will also recognise their humanity.

That is why Jason's death raises questions extending far beyond Jason.

If safeguarding can fail around a globally recognised professor, what protections exist for the vulnerable Black student without his profile, status or platform?

That question should matter enormously to every organisation funding access to Cambridge.

I am therefore asking the #Merky Foundation to urgently review its partnership with the University of Cambridge and consider pausing further funding commitments until Cambridge provides transparent answers about the safeguarding arrangements that existed around Jason and the protections available to vulnerable Black staff and students more broadly.

I am not asking you to prejudge the circumstances of Jason's death.

I am asking you to use the influence your extraordinary investment has created to demand accountability.

Ask Cambridge:

What happened to safeguarding when Jason became vulnerable under pressure?

Ask what policies existed.

Ask whether they were activated.

Ask who had responsibility.

Ask what reasonable adjustments and support were offered.

Ask what lessons are being learned.

Ask what will change.

And ask what assurance Cambridge can now provide to every Black student entering that institution that inclusion means more than recruitment statistics, photographs, scholarships and representation.

Because there is a principle here that cannot be ignored:

You cannot celebrate someone's vulnerability when it strengthens the institutional success story and treat that vulnerability as irrelevant when their circumstances become difficult.

Jason did not suddenly become vulnerable when the headlines changed.

He was still the same human being.

And institutions cannot turn vulnerable people into symbols without accepting responsibility for the human beings behind those symbols.

I also believe we must be willing to examine race.

That does not mean every criticism directed towards a Black academic is racist.

It does not mean Black professionals should be exempt from scrutiny.

They should not be.

But it does mean we must be prepared to ask whether race affects the intensity, framing, persistence or character of public scrutiny, particularly when Black professionals become highly visible institutional symbols. Concerns about the racial dimensions of Jason's treatment have now been raised publicly by prominent figures. (The Guardian)

That conversation cannot simply disappear because it is uncomfortable.

Michael, you created the Stormzy Scholarship because you wanted young Black people to know that Cambridge was also a place for them.

That mission has mattered.

It has changed lives.

But perhaps this moment requires the next question:

Not simply: can Black students get into Cambridge?

But:

What happens to them once they are inside?

Are they safe?

Are they supported?

Are vulnerabilities recognised?

Are reasonable adjustments meaningful?

Can they challenge institutions without being destroyed by the process?

And when something goes catastrophically wrong, who takes responsibility?

Jason Arday's life must not be reduced to the controversy surrounding the final period of his career.

He was a father.

A partner.

A son.

A brother.

A friend.

A teacher.

A scholar.

And a human being whose family is now grieving an unimaginable loss. (The Guardian)

The cause and circumstances of his death must be left to the appropriate authorities to establish. But that does not prevent us from asking the safeguarding questions his death has exposed.

I therefore respectfully ask the #Merky Foundation to use its considerable moral and financial influence to seek answers from Cambridge before continuing business as usual.

Not as punishment.

Not as retaliation.

But because funding carries influence, and influence carries responsibility.

Black access must mean more than opening the door.

Black inclusion must mean more than representation.

And safeguarding must mean more than a policy sitting on an institutional website.

It must work when somebody actually needs it.

Jason was publicly described by someone who knew him as a vulnerable adult.

So the question remains:

Where were the safeguards?

May Jason Arday rest in peace.

And may the institutions that celebrated his extraordinary achievements now have the courage to examine what happened when he needed something from them in return.

With deepest respect and profound sorrow,

Samantha Avril-Andreassen, LLB (Hons), LLM, LPC, FRSA
Founder, SAFECHAIN™
DFV & Coercive Control Specialist | Survivor-Led Advocate | Driving Systems Reform