Nathan Cofnas, the academic who made plagiarism allegations against Prof Jason Arday before his death, has been suspended by a university.
Arday, 41, resigned from his role at the University of Cambridge this month after coverage of Cofnas’s accusations of plagiarism. The allegations, which were not proven in any formal investigation, triggered questions about Arday’s achievements.
There has been stiff criticism of Cambridge over its handling of the affair, but also of the coverage by some media. The university’s chancellor, Chris Smith, described it as a “racist feeding frenzy”. Arday, who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023, was found dead in Battersea, south London, on Friday.
The “American anti-woke” blogger Cofnas is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University’s department of philosophy and moral sciences, according to his website.
In a post on X on Thursday, Cofnas said: “I am under investigation by my university for discriminating against Arday.” He added in a separate post: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”
Ghent University confirmed his suspension after saying they had been “shocked” by Arday’s death and that it “should prompt reflection”, adding that the institution “opposes discrimination, hatred and racism”.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, Ghent University’s rector, Petra De Sutter, and vice-rector, Herwig Reynaert, said: “We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. 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. For this reason, the university takes the recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter very seriously.
“Ghent University has decided to take appropriate action within its powers and the applicable framework.”
The rector and vice-rector said that while it was “important to be transparent”, they did not want to “pre-empt any potential decisions at this stage”.
In an update on Thursday, a spokesperson said: “Ghent University formally notified the staff member concerned of the launch of a preliminary disciplinary investigation.
“As part of this process, the university is assessing whether there are sufficient grounds to refer the case to the competent disciplinary body for further consideration. Pending this preliminary investigation, Ghent University has suspended the staff member as a precautionary measure.”
Earlier this week, organisers said more than 30,000 people had attended a vigil for Arday in Trafalgar Square, central London.
Cofnas was sacked from his role at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 2024. In blog posts, he had said that, in a meritocracy: “Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” In a piece titled “Don’t Scapegoat Women”, published in January this year, Cofnas claimed “women but not men can get people fired by pointing and crying”.
He added: “To meet de facto quotas, employers have had to reach deeper into the pool of less qualified female candidates. For obvious reasons, affirmative action hires often have a chip on their shoulder. Many of them turn to social justice activism to distract from the fact that they aren’t as good at their job as the straight white men who earned their position based on merit, or weren’t hired at all.”
