Academic Who Accused Jason Arday of Plagiarism Suspended by University

American academic Nathan Cofnas, who publicly accused the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarism, has been suspended from his position at Ghent University in Belgium.  

Cofnas has been working at Ghent University since the start of this year as a post doctoral researcher, after being fired from his position at Cambridge University in 2024. This was a result of him sharing his ideology that genes play a “non-trivial” role in intelligence between racial groups, and that under a true meritocracy: “Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”. 

He was the one to first publicly lobby claims of plagiarism against Arday, as well as raise concern over the validity of his charity work. Now, a week on from Arday’s death, Cofnas announced in posts on X (formerly Twitter), that he had been suspended from Ghent University, and that: “They will almost certainly fire me”. 

The University’s rector Petra De Sutter and vice-rector Herwig Reynaert said they took “appropriate action” in regards to Cofnas, and that the university stood for: “respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism”. 

Written by Jorja Flitcroft