An American academic who publicly accused former Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarizing his thesis has been suspended from his post at a Belgian university, following Arday’s resignation and subsequent death.
Nathan Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher in Ghent University’s department of philosophy and moral sciences, said Thursday that he had been suspended. The move came less than a month after Cofnas also alleged that Arday had been hired by Cambridge “explicitly to advance the cause of racial diversity.”
Cofnas, a Chicago native, was suspended less than a week after Arday — widely reported as the youngest Black professor at Cambridge — was found unresponsive at his home in south London and later pronounced dead at the age of 41.
“They will almost certainly fire me,” Cofnas, who previously held an academic role at Cambridge, predicted.
A spokesperson for Ghent University said the suspension, without identifying Cofnas by name, was a “precautionary measure” tied to an investigation into “recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher.”
“As part of this process, the university is assessing whether there are sufficient grounds to refer the case to the competent disciplinary body for further consideration,” the spokesperson said.
“The university cannot comment further on the specific details of the disciplinary case or the underlying arguments, in order to safeguard the confidentiality of the personnel file and the disciplinary proceedings.”
News of Cofnas’ suspension followed a statement from Ghent University rector Petra de Sutter, who said Arday’s death “should prompt reflection.”
“We hope that lessons will be learnt from what has happened regarding the way we treat one another both within and outside the academic world, particularly when people become the subject of public controversy,” de Sutter, formerly a member of the European Parliament for Belgium’s Green Party, said.
In his Substack entitled “DEI fraud and cover-up at Cambridge,” Cofnas told how he ran Arday’s PhD philosophy thesis through the plagiarism-detection tool “Copyleaks.”
It found striking similarities with a thesis published by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, who was studying at Brunel University in June 2009.
An analysis later showed more than 100 passages in his thesis reportedly appeared to be similar to or lifted from the thesis of Zwozdiak-Myers.
Arday was hired by Cambridge “explicitly to advance the cause of racial diversity,” according to Cofnas, who was fired by the university in 2024 over controversial blog posts.
The academic highlighted an article published by Cambridge which celebrated Arday’s appointment as a sociology professor in February 2023.
In the piece, Arday said his work “focuses primarily on how we can open doors to more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and truly democratise higher education.”
“Hopefully being in a place like Cambridge will provide me with the leverage to lead that agenda nationally and globally.”
Arday also came under scrutiny after falsely claiming he had worked at three universities.
He claimed he was a visiting professor at Ohio State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion — though the school’s DEI office closed in 2025 and school staffers said they had no record of him as an employee, according to the National Review.
He claimed he was a visiting professor at Glasgow University, emphatically denied by the Scottish institution.
He listed working at Durham University as an honorary professor in the sociology department.
“After leaving Durham for another university, Jason had an unpaid academic association with Durham University in relation to ongoing project work,” a university spokesperson clarified to The Post. “This type of arrangement is standard practice in academia.”
Cambridge bosses said they had launched an investigation after the claims emerged but Arday resigned from his role.
“Sadly, the years since my appointment have also been marked by an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack,” he said in a letter on the Good Law Project.
“While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement. The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”
