Ghent University suspends researcher Nathan Cofnas after Jason Arday's suicide

The University of Ghent (Belgium) announced on Thursday August 20 that it had suspended one of its researchers, Nathan Cofnas, who was behind accusations of plagiarism against a British professor at the University of Cambridge, Jason Arday. He resigned at the beginning of August before being found dead.

“I've just been suspended by Ghent University. I'm pretty sure they're going to expel me,” Nathan Cofnas reacted on X. A philosophical researcher, he defines himself as a "racial realist", a racist school of thought which presents as scientific realities the existence of several races within humanity and the idea that they are not equal. Himself a former researcher at Cambridge, he was dismissed from his position in 2024 after a controversy surrounding a blog article in which he estimated that, in a meritocracy, black people "would disappear from almost all prestigious positions outside of sports and entertainment". His appointment in Ghent at the start of the year was contested.

The University of Ghent, for its part, underlined, in a press release, having decided to open a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” against this researcher, whom it does not explicitly name. This investigation should make it possible, according to the university, to verify whether there are "sufficient elements to transmit the file to the competent disciplinary body for a more in-depth examination".

“Ghent University is deeply shocked by the death of Professor Arday,” said its rector Pietra De Sutter, in a press release published on Wednesday. This death “must lead us to reflect” and “we hope that lessons will be learned about the way we treat each other,” she said in a press release co-signed by her deputy Herwig Reynaert.

Jason Arday, the youngest black professor at Cambridge University before his resignation, was found dead at his home in mid-August, after accusations of plagiarism, which unleashed passions in Great Britain. The accusations against this sociologist specializing in education, aged 41 at the time of his death, had been the subject of wide media coverage in the British press after Nathan Cofnas declared in July to have discovered numerous cases of plagiarism in his work.

British media and right-wing commentators followed Nathan Cofnas' lead, claiming that Jason Arday, who had disputed the accusations, had unduly benefited from diversity, equality and inclusion policies.