University suspends US academic leading Jason Arday plagiarism accusations

A Belgian university has suspended an American academic who led accusations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, the Black ex-Cambridge professor who died last week amid scrutiny many have labelled “ racist “.

Arday had resigned from his post as professor of sociology at the University of Cambridge in early August over the scandal and the public scrutiny mounting against him.

Researcher Nathan Cofnas – a self-defined “race realist” who was himself sacked from his job at Cambridge in 2024 over his views on race – posted on X on Thursday: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”

Without naming Cofnas, the University of Ghent said in a statement that it had launched a “preliminary disciplinary investigation” against a postdoctoral researcher embroiled in the Arday case.

“Ghent University has suspended the staff member as a precautionary measure,” it said, citing its “respect for human dignity and opposition to discrimination”.

“We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial,” the university’s Rector Petra De Sutter and Vice-Rector Herwig Reynaert said in a statement. “However, that freedom is not unlimited. It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others.”

Arday, who became Cambridge’s youngest-ever Black professor when he was appointed in 2023, was found dead on Friday aged 41. He was facing numerous accusations of plagiarising parts of his doctoral thesis and exaggerating some of his personal life achievements.

Diagnosed with autism and other developmental difficulties as a child, Arday had always disputed the allegations against him.