An academic who accused the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarism has been suspended from his post at a Belgian university. Nathan Cofnas, a self-defined “race realist”, was among those to question Arday’s work and achievements – prompting a weeks-long plagiarism row prior to his death on 14 August.
Cofnas said he was under investigation by Ghent University “for discriminating against Arday”.
The university said a staff member had been notified of a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” and suspended as a precaution.
In a statement regarding Arday’s death, its 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”.
They said the university stood for “respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism”.
“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.”
They 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”.
Cofnas works as a postdoctoral researcher at the university’s department of philosophy and moral sciences, according to his website.
His role at a Cambridge college was terminated in 2024 after backlash to his view that, under a true meritocracy, black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.
Cofnas claimed to have put Arday’s work through plagiarism detection software which found that “many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source”.
He also noted that a retired professor had previously raised concerns about Arday’s subsequent academic articles, which led to two journals issuing correction notes.
Questions were also asked about Arday’s claims that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days, and 300 miles in three days for charity, which Arday said had raised more than £5m for charity, as well as running 600 miles on a treadmill in six days.
Arday – who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023 – was found dead in Battersea, south London, having resigned as a professor of sociology of education the week prior.
The 41-year-old had faced weeks of media coverage over plagiarism allegations and questions about his achievements. He denied the claims.
By BBC News
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