A Belgian university has suspended American academic Nathan Cofnas, who led plagiarism allegations against former Cambridge University professor Jason Arday, and launched a preliminary disciplinary investigation into his conduct.
Ghent University said Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher at the institution, was suspended as a precaution while it assesses whether there are grounds for full disciplinary proceedings.
The move comes days after Arday, 41, died following intense public scrutiny over allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis and exaggerated aspects of his personal achievements.
Cofnas confirmed his suspension in a post on X, writing: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”
Although the university did not name Cofnas in its statement, it said it had opened a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” into a postdoctoral researcher involved in the Arday case.
“Ghent University has suspended the staff member as a precautionary measure,” the university said, citing its “respect for human dignity and opposition to discrimination”.
The university’s Rector, Petra De Sutter, and Vice-Rector, Herwig Reynaert, said academic freedom and open debate remained important, including when views were controversial, but stressed that such freedom was not unlimited. “It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others,” they said.
Arday, who became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor when he was appointed in 2023, was found dead on August 15 at an address in Battersea, South London, at the age of 41.
He had been facing allegations that parts of his doctoral thesis were plagiarized and that he had exaggerated some of his personal achievements.
Also Read: Cambridge professor Arday dies amid plagiarism controversy
Arday, who was diagnosed with autism and other developmental difficulties as a child, consistently disputed the allegations.
He resigned from his position as professor of sociology at Cambridge on August 5, amid mounting scrutiny over the claims. In his resignation letter, Arday said he had “reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure”.
Concerns about plagiarism in Arday’s work had surfaced several years earlier but did not lead to further action at the time. One reporter who had considered investigating the allegations reportedly backed down after Arday threatened legal action.
The controversy intensified last month after Cofnas said he had identified numerous instances of alleged plagiarism in Arday’s work. The claims subsequently attracted widespread media attention in the United Kingdom and the United States.
British media outlets and right-wing commentators seized on the controversy, arguing that Arday had benefited unfairly from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, DEI, policies.
Cofnas, an outspoken critic of DEI policies who describes himself as a “race realist”, has argued that intelligence differs between racial groups.
He has also written that, in a true meritocracy, leading universities such as Harvard and Cambridge would have few Black professors. Cofnas was dismissed from Cambridge in 2024 over his views on race.
Following Arday’s death, Oxford academic Sneha Krishnan described the circumstances surrounding his harassment and death as “institutional murder by a system infused with anti-Black racism” in an opinion article published by Al Jazeera.
Arday’s death also prompted anti-racism rallies in London and other cities, while thousands of mourners gathered to pay tribute to him and criticized the media scrutiny surrounding the plagiarism allegations.
Ghent University said it was assessing whether there were sufficient grounds to initiate full disciplinary proceedings against the suspended researcher. It added that it was taking recent statements concerning the case “very seriously”.
Al Jazeera
