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.
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113 Articles
Nathan Cofnas works at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and had triggered the media case around the British researcher found dead on August 14th.
A plagiarism scandal recently erupted in the UK, at the center of which was Cambridge University professor Jason Arday, who was later found dead. Arday was also accused by Ghent University researcher Nathan Cofnas, who has now been launched into an internal investigation by his home university and temporarily suspended.
The US researcher Nathan Cofnas presented the plagiarism accusations against the late ex-Cambridge professor Jason Arday. Now the University of Ghent has exempted Cofnas from his duties.
Why Was Nathan Cofnas Suspended? Academic Faces Disciplinary Investigation
American academic Nathan Cofnas has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium while the institution conducts a preliminary disciplinary investigation into public statements he made about the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday. Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher in Ghent University's department of philosophy and moral sciences, had raised allegations of plagiarism against Arday shortly before the professor resigned from the University of Cam…
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