Researcher Nathan Cofnas, who accused late Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarism, has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium under a preliminary discrimination investigation.
Cofnas confirmed that he is under investigation by the university for alleged discrimination against Arday. Ghent University announced that a member of its staff was notified of a preliminary disciplinary probe and placed on precautionary suspension.
In a statement following Arday's death on August 14, Ghent University Rector Petra De Sutter and Vice-Rector Herwig Reynaert said they take very seriously recent public statements made by one of their postdoctoral researchers regarding the matter, and confirmed appropriate actions have been taken.
The university leadership emphasized that Ghent University defends respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism. They added that while the institution attaches great importance to academic freedom, such freedom is not unlimited, carries responsibility, and can be restricted to protect the rights of others.
Disciplinary action and institutional response
De Sutter and Reynaert stated that Arday's death should serve as an occasion for reflection and for drawing conclusions about how people treat one another inside and outside academia, especially when individuals find themselves at the centre of public controversy.
Cofnas works as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University, according to his personal website. He describes himself as a race realist. In 2024, his affiliation with a college at the University of Cambridge was terminated following widespread backlash over his view that Black people would disappear from almost all high-status positions outside sports and entertainment in a meritocratic system.
Before Arday died, Cofnas was among several critics who questioned the academic work and accomplishments of the Cambridge professor during a controversy that spanned several weeks. Cofnas claimed he submitted Arday's writing to plagiarism detection software, which he said identified numerous passages copied with minimal changes, including retained editing errors from original sources.
Plagiarism allegations and charity claims
Cofnas also noted that a retired professor had previously raised concerns about later academic papers written by Arday. Following those concerns, two academic journals published formal correction notes regarding the papers.
Questions had also been raised concerning athletic achievements that Arday claimed to have completed for charity. These included claims that he completed 30 marathons in 35 days, covered 300 miles in three days, and ran 600 miles on a treadmill over six days, which Arday said raised more than 5 million pounds for charitable causes.
Arday made history in 2023 when he became the youngest Black person appointed as a professor at the University of Cambridge, taking up a post as professor of Sociology of Education. He was found dead in Battersea, South London, on August 14 at the age of 41, one week after resigning from his professorship.
In the weeks leading up to his death, the 41-year-old academic had been the subject of extensive media coverage regarding the accusations of plagiarism and challenges to his reported achievements. Arday had denied all accusations prior to his death.
Academic background and context
Ghent University, located in Ghent, Belgium, is one of the country's major public research universities. The University of Cambridge, established in 1209 in England, is one of the world's oldest academic institutions. Sociology of education focuses on how social institutions and individual experiences influence educational processes and structural outcomes.
