LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP)—More than 31,000 people, including several MPs, have signed a petition urging United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Andy Burnham to hold a public inquiry into alleged media harassment of the late academic Jason Arday, the organisers said Sunday.

The petition was launched by the Good Law Project activist group after Arday, who was appointed three years ago as the youngest-ever black professor at Cambridge University, was found dead on Friday.

The project had been supporting Arday since he resigned earlier this month from the university and as a fellow of Jesus College after both institutions launched investigations into allegations of plagiarism and fabricating or exaggerating his life story.