Ghent suspends academic who accused Jason Arday of plagiarism

Ghent University has suspended Nathan Cofnas, the American academic who helped drive plagiarism accusations against the late former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, while it conducts a preliminary disciplinary investigation.

Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher in Ghent’s department of philosophy and moral sciences according to his website, said he was being investigated “for discriminating against Arday.” In a post on X quoted by Al Jazeera, he wrote: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”

The Belgian university did not name Cofnas in its statement, but said a staff member had been notified of a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” and suspended as a precautionary measure. Rector Petra De Sutter and Vice-Rector Herwig Reynaert said they took “recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter very seriously” and had taken “appropriate action.”

The university said it stands for “respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism.” It also defended academic debate while drawing limits around it.

“We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial,” De Sutter and Reynaert said. “However, that freedom is not unlimited. It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others.”

Arday, who became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023, was found dead in Battersea, south London, on Aug. 14. He was 41. He had resigned the previous week as professor of sociology of education after weeks of media coverage over plagiarism allegations and questions about his achievements. He denied the allegations.

Al Jazeera reported that Arday resigned on Aug. 5, writing in his resignation letter that he had “reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.” The outlet also reported that Arday had been diagnosed with autism and other developmental difficulties as a child.

Cofnas, who describes himself as a “race realist,” was among those who publicly questioned Arday’s scholarship and career achievements. He claimed he had put Arday’s work through plagiarism detection software and found that “many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source.” He also said a retired professor had previously raised concerns about later academic articles by Arday, leading two journals to issue correction notes.

Questions were also raised about Arday’s claims that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days and 300 miles in three days for charity, which he said raised more than £5 million, as well as a claim that he ran 600 miles on a treadmill in six days.

Cofnas previously lost a role at a Cambridge college in 2024 after backlash over his view that, under what he called a true meritocracy, Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” Al Jazeera described him as an outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion policies and reported that British media and right-wing commentators linked the Arday controversy to claims about DEI.

Ghent University said Arday’s death should “prompt reflection” and that lessons should be learned “regarding the way we treat one another both within and outside the academic world, particularly when people become the subject of public controversy.” Al Jazeera reported that Ghent is assessing whether there are sufficient grounds to open full disciplinary proceedings.