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Have been waiting for the thread on Arday.
Honestly whilst he's clearly an insane fantabulist who got used to not receiving pushback on fanciful claims, I can kind of sympathize with why there hasn't been pushback from inside the academy on him from his peers or people who weren't directly involved in the decision to hire him. Trying to call him out on his insanity is 98% going to result in you getting a 'Racism' tag on your proverbial permanent record in Academia, and unless you are actually in direct competition with him for a specific job (and you'd probably need to be a level 15 Diversity Hire to even be his 'competition') it's hard to see the upside to your career for exposing yourself massively to censure and a PR battle you will most likely lose. Cofnas can swing on him since he's already outside the academy, but I'd be shocked if there weren't people reflexively eyerolling at his claims who knew it was not worth the potential massive career downsides to swing at him.
Simon Baron Cohen's tweet in support of him essentially arguing that he shouldn't be targeted due to Autistic Suicide Risk was particularly disappointing, though. But a Black Academic who can also play the disability card is essentially a Grand Wizard of 2026 communications. There is no strategy you can take against this manifestation. Complete sideline but another fascinating Twitter drama of the week in the form of a UK wheelchair-bound disability influencer in a video that needs to be seen to be believed, which has led into a plethora of spinoff dramas in which people are unearthing her rich social media presence as a Gymnast and Hiker despite requiring a wheelchair. A certain chunk of society has realized that claims of disability/anxiety give them an instant win button against all forms of mild lifestyle agitation.
Back in the day you had to descend from someone rich enough to be able to support a totally useless daughter prone to fainting spells or whatever the mental illness of the day was.
You may not like it, but this is what successful democratization looks like.
True though in the days of yore I'd be more willing to extend the branch of 'poor constitution' to somebody considering the relative lack of medical care, abundance of childhood diseases and prevalence of random untimely death.
I've heard rumours that "going to the shore/countryside for one's health" actually made a lot of sense given that the building materials/paint resulted in a decent amount of low-level toxins in the air.
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Based on "I had a bit of energy on this day" I guessed that it would be one of those I-dont-feel-like-getting-out-of-bed illnesses that mostly women get, like post-lyme or fibromyalgia, and I was right, although the one she has in particular (FNSD) I did not know. Although she usually just calls it "chronic illness" for some reason. Reference video.
I mean, I guess Munchausen Syndrome is a chronic illness.
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