Belgian academic who accused late Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarism suspended from his university

An academic who accused former Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarizing his thesis before the educator quit his job and later found dead has been suspended from his role at a Belgian university.Nathan Cofnas, a postdoctoral researcher in Ghent University’s philosophy and moral sciences department, said Thursday he had been suspended – less than a month after he also claimed that Arday was appointed by the esteemed English institution “explicitly to advance the cause of racial diversity.” Cofnas’ suspension came less than a week after Arday, the youngest black professor at the renowned university, was found unresponsive at his south London home and later pronounced at 41.“They will almost certainly fire me,” American philosopher Cofnas, a former Cambridge academic, scoffed on social media.A Ghent University spokesperson said Cofnas’ suspension was a “precautionary measure,” without naming him, as part of a probe 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,” they 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.”Cofnas’ suspension was announced after the university’s rector, Petra de Sutter, released a statement saying 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 ph...