The death of Cambridge Professor Jason Arday is so much worse than a plagiarist committing suicide. It is an indictment of one of the world’s top universities. The fraud was exposed, but more than that, it exposed an unbelievable cover-up by those in power. The cover-up continues, silencing those who would tell the truth. The cover-up is obvious, but still they won’t stop. This is a sickness is permeating more than the one university.
Jason Arday, who apparently plagiarized his work, rose to prominence at the university and was highly acclaimed by the administration; he turned up dead and appears to have killed himself. The investigation into his death is ongoing. The people who exposed his alleged fraud are being punished and ostracized.
The attacks on those who revealed the fraud are stunning and irrational. Richard Dawkins addressed it.
“The University of Cambridge can boast 126 Nobel Prizes. That’s more than any other university in the world except Harvard, and it does it on an endowment that is one twentieth the endowment of Harvard. In the Nobel ranking, Cambridge beats MIT, Chicago, Columbia, Oxford, and Yale (in that order). Cambridge, the university of Newton, Hawking, Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, Keynes, Crick, Sanger, Kendrew, Perutz, Rutherford, Chadwick, Turing, Maxwell, Brenner, the list goes on and on, Cambridge is beyond question one of the very greatest universities in the world. The list of immense distinction continues to the present day. It is tragic, and deeply unfair, that the reputation of this truly great university should suffer at the hands of one unfortunate anomaly, the Department of Education.”
Arday was no innocent. In addition to the fraud, he responded by threatening those who noticed. He accused them of racism. Mr. Arday was black.
The Few Good Men
David Harris, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, first raised concerns about Arday’s doctoral thesis and subsequent peer-reviewed publications in May 2023.
Harris raised concerns with Arday, who then reported Harris to the police for harassment.
Concerns raised by Harris led Arday to correct his published work.
Harris is now being vilified by media outlets and an MP.
Diane Abbott MP claimed that “other professors” had waged a three-year “vicious campaign” against Arday because they “just didn’t believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor.”
Ghent University in Belgium said it suspended the academic, Nathan Cofnas, pending an investigation for exposing Jason Arday.
Cofnas, an American, was suspect partly for his research suggesting that Black people are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than white people. Ghent said he was suspended as a precaution.
Cofnas said, “The decision was made by rector Petra De Sutter, a former leader of the Green Party.” Petra is also a transgender.
The problem for Ghent is that the allegations had nothing to do with Mr. Arday’s race. He was plagiarizing, and there were many examples of it.
Ghent claims to support academic freedom, but there are limitations. Do the limitations come in when they don’t like what they hear?
Jonatan Palietsen wrote on X:
“While at Ghent, Cofnas was attacked with a thrown bottle, which gave him a concussion. In response to this, the university did nothing, even though the perpetrator was identified and was a student at Ghent University, and the incident was on video.
“The police also had the identity of the perpetrator, but there was no prosecution or anything else.
“While he was at Cambridge, they conducted a 1.5-year-long investigation and then exonerated him right before his contract was up, so that he was excluded for essentially his entire time there. And now he has been suspended by Ghent University for the sin of publishing an article pointing out the obvious plagiarism in the work of Jason Arday.”
The Committee on Academic Freedom responded:
STATEMENT: The Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) is deeply concerned by Ghent University’s (@ugent’s) suspension of Dr Nathan Cofnas. While we take no view on the merits of Dr Cofnas’s — or any other scholar’s — views beyond the question of whether they are lawful, the reasons… pic.twitter.com/kSpBb60w5w
— Committee for Academic Freedom (@ComAcFreedom) August 20, 2026
The US ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, responded on behalf of Mr. Cofnas.
The United States Mission to Belgium condemns, in the strongest terms, Ghent University’s retaliation against an American scholar following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud.
The United States government regularly funds and supports research, academic exchanges, and other engagements with overseas universities. Dishonest, corrupt institutions that engage in, or reward, scapegoating mob behavior are not desirable partners for us. This is particularly true where the purpose and effect of the scapegoating is to punish accurate journalism unearthing academic dishonesty. We are therefore reviewing any relationships we have with Ghent University.
Bad-faith ideologues will try to make this a referendum on the content of Cofnas’s scholarship – or polemical distortions of it. That’s wrong. Free speech means that controversial views are protected. And Cofnas’s views were known to Ghent University when he was hired.
The ultimate purpose of freedom of speech is to overturn lies, fraud, and false ideologies. This is precisely what Cofnas was doing, and precisely the reason his home institution wants to silence him.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
This Has to Be Exposed and Condemned
This could happen at any university. It’s not only a problem for the finest university in the world. It exemplifies the dilemma that is destroying our universities and Western culture. The fraudsters are protected, and those pointing to the fraud are punished. This is sick.
Thanks to Secretary Rubio, this didn’t go unnoticed. It doesn’t mean the guilty parties will suddenly find a conscience.
The DEI ideology is destroying us from within through our intellectuals. There was no punishment for the professors and administrators who covered up the fraud. As for Mr. Arday, he punished himself. The two academics who exposed the fraud are vilified; one is being sued, and the other is suspended.
Can this be turned around? Secretary Rubio spoke out, and we all must. Maybe someone will listen. There is not much hope for the people who covered it up. They are the ones who should be suspended.