Academic who raised plagiarism allegations against Jason Arday suspended by his university
Ghent University said the suspension is a precaution while it reviews whether a postdoctoral researcher’s public comments on Jason Arday warrant disciplinary action.
- On Thursday, Ghent University suspended postdoctoral researcher Nathan Cofnas, launching a preliminary disciplinary investigation into his public statements regarding plagiarism allegations against late Cambridge professor Jason Arday.
- In late July, Cofnas published evidence on Substack showing large sections of Arday's 2015 PhD thesis at Liverpool John Moores University were taken nearly verbatim from a 2009 dissertation by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.
- Rector Petra De Sutter and vice-rector Herwig Reynaert stated that while Ghent values academic freedom, "that freedom is not unlimited" and must be restricted to protect others' rights.
- Cofnas confirmed his suspension on Thursday, stating "They will almost certainly fire me," as more than 30,000 people attended a vigil in Trafalgar Square for Arday, found dead in London on August 14.
- Cofnas, who describes himself as a "race realist," previously left Cambridge's Emmanuel College in 2024 amid controversy over his writings on race and intelligence, positioning the suspension within broader institutional tensions.
123 Articles
123 Articles
The US researcher raised the allegations against the late ex-Cambridge professor. Now the Belgian university has responded in the debate on racism.
The Jason Arday case exposed a curriculum full of frauds, but what makes the circumstances of this case beyond a personal drama is the idea that you only fooled those who wanted to be deceived: the academy.
The rector of the University of Ghent in Belgium announced that he had put Nathan Cofnas under investigation for 'discriminatory statements'. The professor claimed that the young British sociologist — found dead at home two weeks ago — had copied his degree thesis
University Suspends Academic Who Accused Arday of Plagiarism
Nathan Cofnas says he will “probably be fired” as Ghent begins disciplinary proceedings. Belgium’s Ghent University has suspended Nathan Cofnas, the controversial scholar whose blog accusing Jason Arday of plagiarism led to widespread public scrutiny of the late University of Cambridge professor’s academic record and personal achievements. Ghent said in a statement that it has launched “a preliminary disciplinary investigation” into Cofnas, a po…
Nathan Cofnas works at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and had triggered the media case around the British researcher found dead on August 14th.
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