Ghent suspends Cofnas – the Arday fallout
I wrote a recent post about Nathan Cofnas, the professor who exposed Arday as a plagiarist. Here’s the post; it features a fairly lengthy interview with Cofnas, which should give you a pretty good idea of the sort of ideas he espouses, and his career in academia, as well as how he exposed Arday.
Even before the Arday incident, Cofnas was a figure of controversy for his writing and research on race and intelligence:
He became an early-career research fellow at the University of Cambridge and research associate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2022. Controversy developed after Cofnas published a 2024 blog post saying that black people are, on average, less intelligent than other groups, and that they “would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment” under a meritocratic system. He was dismissed from his position at Emmanuel College as a result.
In 2026, Cofnas secured a position at Ghent University. Following student protest and a petition calling for his dismissal, the university defended his appointment, citing academic freedom. Cofnas attracted further attention after publishing a blog post in which he catalogued multiple examples of alleged plagiarism by University of Cambridge sociologist Jason Arday …
In that Wiki article I just quoted, I don’t see it mentioned that Cofnas says he got these facts from Harvard’s own study on the matter. Cofnas discusses it in the interview I posted, and it’s also mentioned here:
[Cofnas] cites Harvard University data which suggest that were the college to use a colourblind system for academic selection, judging applicants by academic qualifications alone, its proportion of black students would fall dramatically, from around 14 per cent to just 0.7 per cent. When it comes to Harvard faculty, Dr Cofnas added that in a meritocracy they ‘would be recruited from the best of the best students’, meaning ‘the number of black professors would approach 0 per cent’. He adds that black people would ‘disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment’ in this society.
Cofnas is labeled a racist, but basing a statement like that on Harvard’s own statistics doesn’t make him one. Whether he is or is not, I don’t know. He definitely is a person unafraid of making waves, which is also evident from the interview in my previous post. Cofnas waded into Arday’s background where others feared to tread. Now, with Arday’s suicide, Cofnas has been suspended from his current post at Ghent University:
Nathan Cofnas, suspended by the rector of Ghent University, Petra De Sutter, in the wake of Jason Arday’s death, notes that De Sutter used ChatGPT for her inaugural address, which included fabricated quotes.
Previous news reports confirm this.https://t.co/xppHNZk3Wo https://t.co/XjaV0P6zZk pic.twitter.com/9gCl3NsjXs
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) August 20, 2026
For those lacking access to X:
Nathan Cofnas, suspended by the rector of Ghent University, Petra De Sutter, in the wake of Jason Arday’s death, notes that De Sutter used ChatGPT for her inaugural address, which included fabricated quotes.
To top it all off, Ghent’s rector De Sutter is a gynecologist who was born a man and transitioned around the age of forty, in 2004.
The reason given for Cofnas’ suspension:
Ghent University said it had suspended Cofnas “as a precautionary measure” pending a preliminary disciplinary investigation, but did not go into further detail on the reasons.
It could not comment any further “to safeguard the confidentiality of the personnel file and the disciplinary proceedings,” it said in an emailed statement.
Pretty closed-mouthed, but my guess is that they are afraid of an uproar from students, faculty, and the public if they keep him. He is identified as the mean racist guy who lynched Arday.
Here’s more on the matter from the University of Ghent:
The suspension comes after Ghent said that following Arday’s death it had “received many enquiries” about Cofnas’s appointment.
“We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. 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,” Ghent said in its statement.
“For this reason, the university takes the recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter very seriously. Ghent University has decided to take appropriate action within its powers and the applicable framework.”
In March, more than 300 staff and students wrote an open letter to the university, questioning the appointment of Cofnas and accusing Ghent of violating its code of conduct.
Ghent defended itself then. But will it defend free speech now, or succumb? A robust defense of free speech doesn’t really exist in Europe anywhere; at least, I’ve never found one.
Cofnas is an American, however, and the Trump administration is sticking up for him:
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White gets right to the point in the X post below. He calls out the Ghent University rector for “retaliat[ing] against an American scholar [Cofnas] following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud.”
He notes that the U.S. often funds research projects with foreign universities and that “dishonest, corrupt institutions that engage in, or reward, scapegoating mob behavior are not desirable partners for us.” Therefore, the U.S. plans to review “any relationships we have with Ghent University.”
It will be very interesting to see what ultimately happens to Cofnas. I hope he has a security detail.
NOTE: In doing research for this post, I came across this tweet on X praising the Trump administration for doing the right thing in this instance. But when I looked at the responses to the tweet, there were many that said that Trump only did this because he’s controlled by the Jews and Israel, and Cofnas is Jewish. It was quite the barrage of Tuckeresque contempt, such as (for example):
The Trump administration defended Nathan Cofnas because he’s jewish, and it would have done so regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not.
The absolute only reason they are defending Confas is because he is aggressively Jewish, and the singular aim of this administration is to serve the Jews.
[Trump] would never do this for a White person
Ok, but Trumps law: ‘everything he does, he does for *them*’ holds true in this instance. No matter how repellently obnoxious the other side is, it’s hard not to notice the consistent pattern. If Confas wasn’t a Zionist Jew it would be very different.
Oh please, let’s not be oblivious here.
Cofnas is Jewish and this administration is controlled by Jews.
You don’t see this “based” administration going to bat for nationalist figures in Europe.
Cofnas is a jew. There have been plenty of times they could have defended this rhetoric, but they aren’t defending the rhetoric they are defending the tribe.
There are plenty more where those came from, but you get the idea. Are they bots? Paid trolls? Muslims in foreign lands? Or real people from the US and Western Europe who are Tucker fans? Probably some mix of all three, but I don’t know the proportions.
Note that they don’t consider Jews “white.” The left, on the other hand, considers Jews extremely privileged whites. This double-edged sword is a really good example of how Jew-hatred works – the Jews are regarded as allied with whatever the Jew-hating group sees as the enemy.
[ADDENDUM:
Cofnas tells his side of it here. An excerpt:
I have been flooded with death threats, smeared in countless newspaper articles, and accused of targeting Arday because I think that, as one commentator put it, “people like Cofnas simply don’t believe that Black people deserve to be professors at all.” Speaker after speaker at the vigil held for Arday in Trafalgar Square on Monday denounced me by name, including a prominent politician. Many have claimed that I fabricated the evidence against Arday, although this is easily refuted.
On Aug. 18, the U.K.’s National Union of Journalists released a “Statement on the Death of Jason Arday.” After “condemn[ing] attacks against individual journalists,” the statement singles out one person for criticism: me. “That one of the highest profile critics of Arday was Nathan Cofnas, a former Cambridge academic and self-described ‘race realist’, is deeply concerning.” Although no one has found so much as a mistaken comma in the article I wrote about Arday, I’m apparently not entitled to protection against attack for telling the truth.
On Thursday afternoon, I received a message from the rector of Ghent University, Petra De Sutter, notifying me that, in the wake of the backlash from the Arday affair, she was suspending me from my position as a postdoctoral researcher. Her letter made it clear that the school has laid the groundwork to fire me.
I’m an easy scapegoat because I hold views about race that are controversial and easily misunderstood. I argue that differences between ancestral populations aren’t entirely due to environmental forces, and that some group disparities stem from natural differences for which no one is to blame. I made a widely quoted statement: “Under a colorblind system that judged applicants only by academic qualifications, blacks would make up 0.7% of Harvard students.” That sentence has been cited repeatedly as evidence that I’m a racist.
Few people are aware that my statement about Harvard admissions was summarizing a finding by Harvard itself. In the course of the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit, Harvard disclosed an internal study conducted in 2013, which found that, if admissions were based only on grades and test scores, the undergraduate population would be 0.7% African-American—a significant reduction from current levels. Racial representation at many American institutions is maintained by Harvard-style affirmative action.
I didn’t quote Harvard’s statistic to celebrate it, or because I believe that black people don’t belong at universities. There are many brilliant black scholars. But it’s a difficult fact to face that in a truly colorblind system that didn’t take race into account, there would be a shocking lack of diversity in certain institutions. As I said in the controversial essay that mentions the Harvard statistic, “when it comes to policymaking in a multiracial society, we might need to make sure that everyone feels they have a voice in determining our collective fate.” To this end, I argued for taking measures to ensure meaningful representation of major demographic groups. But we shouldn’t do this under the banner of DEI, which automatically blames differences in outcome on white racism.
The number of people hearing Cofnas’ side of the story is miniscule compared to the number who think he’s a racist who murdered Arday with malice aforethought.]
On the leftist comments: How does one qualify as “aggressively Jewish?” I searched for an image; he looks quite mild and inoffensive, with not even a yarmulke that I can see.
American black academic performance could improve dramatically if public schools stopped making excuses for black non-performance and instead took steps to actually educate the kids. Several Southern states are doing this, with good results. Whether this would produce more black college professors is not the point. Producing more educated, competent citizens is.
Kate:
All Jews are aggressive, don’t you know?
Perhaps the term means that Cofnas supports Israel? I don’t even know whether he does; I haven’t seen him mention it. He does sometimes mention being Jewish, so maybe the term means he owns up to being Jewish and doesn’t try to hide it.
I wonder if Cofnas is on the spectrum.
Does this reduce the value of a Ghent education, existing creds or those yet to be earned?
Leftists are attacking Cofnas because he threatens the narrative. That he used Harvard’s own data hoists them upon their own ‘petard’. All else is an attempt to cover up that motivation. Those on the right attacking Cofnas are the real racists.
Hopefully, a conservative American college like Hillsdale will hire Cofnas. Exposing academic charlatans is a badge of honor. Using the left’s own data to damage ‘the narrative’ is worthy of the nation’s highest civilian honor.
And here’s the fun aspect — Sutter solicited complaints about him. That is, the uproar was deliberately created by the person who used it as a pretext.
Here’s the reference
https://xcancel.com/mboudry/status/2090767747365896519#m
Hopefully, a conservative American college like Hillsdale will hire Cofnas.
==
Not a great idea for Hillsdale or Grove City. Cofnas may be honest. He may have been mistreated. He is not your ally.
Wonderful, tought-provoking, and epic long post about Cofnas post-Arday Situation! Thank you, Neo….
I would guess that the Washington Free Beacon’s story about the unified elites blaming with projection at the Right-wing, naturally— is even somewhat longer. https://freebeacon.com/campus/frankly-he-has-been-killed-angry-scholars-from-uks-top-academics-union-blame-jason-ardays-death-on-racist-mob-as-race-realist-who-igni/
Spot on, Geoffrey Britain. It’s pure scapegoating.
Leftist RULES OF ENGAGEMENT dictate that one must cover up the coverup of the coverup of the coverup, etc., ad infinitum.
(Shorter version: Don’t rock the boat, baby.)
Cofnas obviously either didn’t get the message or refused to follow it.
He therefore must pay the consequences for his perverse insistence on promoting the colonialist-oppressor-capitalist-racist-inhumane policy known as truth or honesty.
Related:
“Remember The Names”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/remember-names
Another mental case in charge. To quote Austin Powers, “That’s a man baby.”
Seems the Academic environment is populated by a fairly large number of truth deniers, who are aggressively circling the wagons around their mascots.
Alas, I don’t believe that we will soon hear the last of that grinning fabulist, the so-called professor Arday. He has become the poster child for the freakshow that higher education has become, the emblem of fraud, fakery and exclusionary race- and politically-based policies – the most excellent reason which intelligent and sort-of-conservatives are pointing at, when they argue that college tuition isn’t worth it these days.
@Sgt. Mom: [Arday] has become the poster child for the freakshow that higher education has become…
Yes, Arday is not same-old, same-old. He has gone next level.
As the Marxists would say, Arday has “sharpened the contradictions.” 🙂
@Art Deco:Cofnas may be honest. He may have been mistreated. He is not your ally.
You’ve made other comments like this about Cofnas. I’d be interested to know why you say this. It is entirely possible I would agree, but you’ve been so cryptic I don’t know why you think it.
The Internet runs on binary logic and it’s hard sometimes for people to avoid thinking that someone picked on by one side must therefore be on the other side. Bari Weiss, J. K. Rowling, and John Fetterman come to mind, people who have never left off being on the progressive side on almost everything but a couple of publicized issues.
I can completely see that Cofnas might, for example, be the sort of progressive who thinks that progressives are wrong about how race works but otherwise agrees with them, I know of other such people, but I’d like to know what you’ve uncovered.
Cofnas is neither a progressive nor a conservative. He is an advocate of reason. His particular tonic is hereditarianism.
@Art Deco:Cofnas is neither a progressive nor a conservative. He is an advocate of reason. His particular tonic is hereditarianism.
In what way does that make him “not an ally”? I’m not asking that skeptically, I just don’t understand what that means to you.
Pope Deco speaks.
Gratefully, we listen.
We are so lucky to have him. He is the best in the world in terms of the research that he does.
What that means is that Cofnas has his own agenda and his own fish to fry. He has no interest in Grove City’s agenda or Hillsdale’s agenda bar that they’d be likely to leave him alone were he on the faculty there.
Cofnas is a “post doctoral researcher” in, I gather, sociology, or some related subject. Grove City and Hillsdale, focused on teaching, might simply not have a position suitable for Cofnas.
@Kate: “post doctoral researcher”
In the US that would someone already with a PhD hired to do scholarship or research, not on the path to becoming faculty, usually as part of a team led by a faculty member. I don’t know what’s usual in Belgium.
@Art Deco:What that means is that Cofnas has his own agenda and his own fish to fry.
I was hoping you might shed some light on what that was, but it seems you don’t want to say it, so I’ll quit asking you.
I am American, and should anyone wonder why I really do not care about the horror show unveiling itself in Europe; this post describes a good part of it.
“American black academic performance could improve dramatically”
Keep in mind that the average black score on an IQ test is only about 85. Their academic performance isn’t going to improve dramatically.
I was hoping you might shed some light on what that was, but it seems you don’t want to say it, so I’ll quit asking you.
==
If you clean the wax out of your ears, you’ll hear better.
Ray, it is improving in the states who are actually trying to educate lower-income residents. Whether or not populations produce geniuses is not the question. Producing citizens who can read and write and get productive jobs is.
Cofnas should have remembered what happened to Arthur Jensn when he started investigating intelligence, race and heredity or Linda Gottfredsson.
I have an academic background. And friends who are in academia. And I see them defending the suspension of Cofnas.
These friends are generally pretty left-leaning politically. What with my background that doesn’t surprise me.
That they would defend Cofnas being suspended? That *does* surprise me. Don’t they believe in academic freedom? Do they not have a problem with Arday’s fraud and plagiarism?
@Rick67:Don’t they believe in academic freedom? Do they not have a problem with Arday’s fraud and plagiarism?
No. No. Honestly I wonder if anyone really believes in academic freedom, but lefty academics define it to include only stuff that lefties think. And they’ve long been advocates of different standards for black people.
I am amused by the implication here that foreign Muslims are not real people. LoL
(I get your intent, still funny to read)
Art can you pass the sally-anne test? There are people out there who have their own contexts and fact sets in their brains and so won’t always grasp your meaning, especially if you layer your words in lots of implications and double speech. It’s not their failure to not have lived your life and have your experiences and understandings. That’s what communication is for.
As the joke about translations goes: in a language, context determines the difference between “butt dial” and “booty call.” If someone is missing the context, you don’t make friends by insulting them. (Especially on the Internet where the odds of any 2 people having overlapping contexts for communication become vanishingly small.)
Pope Deco speaks.
Gratefully, we listen.
We are so lucky to have him. He is the best in the world in terms of the research that he does.
@huxley:We are so lucky to have him.
I honestly think his pros outweigh his cons. Most of his comments serve to show that it’s not that there’s no way to do something, it’s that no one who is supposed to do the thing actually wants to do it. (Definitely matches the observations I’ve made in my various day jobs.)
Some of his ideas are pretty good, some are more “how to bell the cat”, but on the whole I think those are net positive.
When he misses, it’s usually because he may not have seen that the process was developed to deliver the outcome that everyone is complaining about, because the intentions of those developing the process were other than they claimed to be. We’ve all seen this in the news recently with so many obvious fraud prevention measures turned off in voting and in services provided to government.
I’m not sure if Nik’s prose outweighs his cons.
But who am I to judge?
@ Rick57 > “Do they not have a problem with Arday’s fraud and plagiarism?”
That certainly seems to be the case with the Cambridge faculty, administration, and cheerleaders.
(Some have even argued that it wasn’t really “plagiarism plagiarism” just because Arday copied someone else’s exact words without attribution: he didn’t copy their ideas, you see. I will try to find it again.)
I have pondered for several days on various problems raised by the Arday Affair, and it occurred to me that I knew a literary parallel; thanks for giving me the hook to hang it on.
Some of you may have read the Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers and be familiar with her most “serious” book about his detective exploits, “Gaudy Night” which is set in an English college. I won’t synopsize the plot (the internet is good for that), but the story turns exactly on your question.
The crucial points are that a junior academician lied about something in his “dissertation” or similar paper (no plagiarism was involved); a professor had proof that he had done so; and she told the rest of the College faculty, leading to the fraudster’s suicide from the realization that his career was over.
A murder is plotted, and vandalism is committed, because one specific person’s problem is not with fraud, but with the revelation of it.
With regard to academic works, Sayers clearly asserts through her characters that fraud matters, and matters deeply, because (my paraphrase), without integrity to the truth, academic research and writing is worse than useless.
In the book, the person who complains that honesty in intellectual work is not as important as a person’s life and family, is from the “uneducated lower classes,” and the defenders of the “truth is essential” position are the professor who reported the fraud, Wimsey himself, and his friend Harriet Vane, an alumna of the College who was present during the situation.
Most of the faculty agreed with the whistleblower, but some were a bit ambivalent.
None really defended the fraud, but were concerned that perhaps some solution could have been found rather than a public denunciation (for values of public: only the College’s faculty were aware, because that was a much earlier era and had no 24/7 news cycle with internet gossip mongers to fan any flames).
At any rate, I suspect the question is much older than Sayers, who was an impressive academic herself (which is not always known by her mystery-reading public).
I have wondered if the topic arose out of some personal knowledge or experience she had in the Ivy Towers where she labored.
This is kind of a “neutral” article, but it does at least address the question.
https://theconversation.com/jason-arday-and-the-new-politics-of-plagiarism-290020