In this morally topsy-turvy world, the University of Ghent is now likely to fire the scholar who helped expose the pseudo-scholar Jason Arday. More on this madness can be found here: “Ghent University suspends and considers terminating an academic who revealed Arday’s deception,” Fred Alan Medforth, August 20, 2026:
The University of Ghent has suspended Nathan Cofnas, the scholar who revealed the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday’s suspected fraud. According to the scholar, he anticipates being sacked. “The manner in which you publicly presented your role in the allegations concerning the late professor Jason Arday has reinforced concerns among the university’s community that your public interventions seem to develop into targeted campaigns of professional elimination,” the university wrote in the suspension letter sent to Cofnas, according to fellow academic Maarten Boudry.
Additionally, you frequently described the late professor Jason Arday as “mentally challenged” and made other derogatory comments about him, such as calling him a “worthless scholar,” in multiple public interviews. “You have shown that your acts go beyond the acceptable parameters of scholarly debate by defining your involvement as a ‘crusade’ targeted at the systematic personal and professional destruction of peers.”…
What are the “acceptable parameters of scholarly debate”? Dofnas described Arday as a “worthless scholar.” Isn’t that true? He called Arday “mentally challenged,” given the latter’s endless lying about his nonexistent books, his nonexistent university appointments, and his comical attempts, when caught out, to deny the obvious and threaten a lawsuit. Isn’t “mentally challenged” exactly what Arday proved to be? Or is the truth no longer a sufficient defense?
The university announced in a statement on August 19 that it was “struck” by Arday’s passing and that it was taking “extremely seriously” the postdoctoral researcher’s recent public remarks “about this situation.” At the same time, we want to be transparent about the principles that our university upholds. Ghent University opposes racism, bigotry, and prejudice and promotes respect for human dignity. It emphasized that academic freedom “is not boundless” and “goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to preserve the rights of others.” According to the statement, “Ghent University has chosen to take appropriate action within its authority and the applicable framework.”
What “rights” of the late Arday needed to be “preserved”? The right to fabricate a nonexistent scholarly history? Why does Ghent University think Sofnes is guilty of “racism,” “bigotry,” and “prejudice” when all he was doing is exposing a fraud? Arday’s race had nothing to do with his being exposed. Had he been white and guilty of the same fraud, wouldn’t Nathan Dofnas have gone after him with the same dedication?
Vice-rector Herwig Reynaert and rector Petra De Sutter, a Groen politician who served as Belgium’s deputy prime minister from 2020 to 2025, signed the declaration….
In January 2026, De Sutter came under fire after it was discovered by the investigative website Apache that three quotes from her rectoral address, purportedly from prominent intellectuals, had been created using generative artificial intelligence. The researcher in question, Nathan Cofnas, an American biological philosopher [sic] who joined Ghent in 2026, was not identified. Ghent University has not said which of Cofnas’ latest remarks set off the procedure or what kind of action would be taken….
It seems that by the rector of Ghent University, Petra De Sutter, has her own bit of plagiarism in her background. Might that be why she’s so determined to get rid of Nathan Cofnas. Who knows what he might unearth about her?
Ibram X [Kendi] wrote in The Emancipator on August 15 that Arday was pursued “like a lynch mob” by the “White-owned, mainstream media,” according to Kendi. Two days later, Al Jazeera published an editorial article referring to the death as “institutional murder.” Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, accused the media of “pernicious public humiliation.” Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, and Labor MPs signed an open letter calling for formal monitoring of press decision-making. This is true even though the media didn’t start covering the subject until much later. In 22 days, 249 stories on Arday were counted by the watchdog NewsCord.
So leftists and BLMers have denounced reporting on Jason Arday’s mythomania. They think the media should have avoided it because, as they see it, it led to the “public humiliation” which, in turn, led to Arday’s suicide. Besides, the media are “owned by whites” and Jason Arday was black. Nothing more need be said. Racism is everywhere.
Think of what this means. A scholarly researcher, Nathan Cofnas, appalled at the massive fraud he discovered in the life and work of a much-praised academic, makes public his findings. All of his charges were found to be well-founded. Nothing he said was the result of bigotry, but was prompted by his laudable desire to maintain minimum standards of competence and scholarship at one of the most famous universities in the world. And now, for doing this great service, instead of receiving praise from his current university, he is about to be fired. What’s wrong with this picture?
Everything.
Westman says
Cambridge Lesson: If your university DEI hire is found to be dishonest, loudly cry racism and close ranks. Never take responsibility.
Ghent Lesson: Don’t get any remote stink on the institution. Cut the connections.
Corollary: Institutions want prestige more than truth.
Edward Brennan says
Everyone, and anyone, who has any connection to this “University”, and who believe’s in the truth, and ‘merit’ over DEI, must speak out in defense of Cofnas.
Otherwise, no one is safe from the mob.
Westman says
Amen.
The man is elegantly educated:
BA from Columbia University
MPhil from Cambridge University
DPhil from Oxford University (completed in 2020)
Early-career research fellow at the University of Cambridge (2022)
Postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University (2026)
Here is the rub:
2024 Blog Post: Claimed that in a meritocratic society, black individuals would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.
He may be right or not, but that is what his research tells him – He is a research professor on the matter of historic human thought and intelligence so it should his right under the Constitution to say what he thinks.
He was a critic of Arday because he had researched the evidence. Not one word of denial of the evidence has come from Cambridge. Just the usual multiple-use canard of racism.
The education institutions cannot be trusted anymore, they will lower the standards to excercise DEI and then deny that it makes any difference when they rejected far more qualified applicants. Professors of Ivy League universities are saying the DEI selection policy is bringing in students who can’t even read at a high school level and are years behind in math.
Elon Musk is right – don’t waste your money unless you know exactly what you want from the university education and why. And if it wants to waste your time, go elsewhere.
tgusa says
“2024 Blog Post: Claimed that in a meritocratic society, black individuals would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.
Sadly, we did have the opportunity to educate some, perhaps many, who knows..The left have never wanted that. The left elevates the most dense among their prospects to positions they should not be in. That in itself should be an insult to American blacks, blacks everywhere in the world. Some will learn some cant. This is Jason Arday on a much bigger scale.
tgusa says
Ghent University is in the middle of a frantic search for a fake scholar to replace Nathan Cofnas.
abu taleb says
Just like Islamophobia case, attack those who reveal the truth to cover up the evil that has been revealed.
tgusa says
This is Belgium but to be fair we here in the USA have the same stupid stuff going on among us. Frauds cheats lairs and those that defend them. It’s an epidemic in the West.
Phil Copson says
“A Professor professing at Ghent –
Discovered a colleague was bent.
To the whole Cambridge board –
He said “Arday’s a fraud!”
To hide it – it’s Cofnas who went…”
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Now you’ve put me in mind of two limericks from the dark past:.
They start
“A geneticist living in Delft” and “An agreeable girl named Miss Doves”
Phil Copson says
Thank you, Hugh. I didn’t know either of those: The “AI” versions I found first were suspiciously anodyne – but a little more searching found the bawdy originals.
The accolade for the finest must surely go either to the one concerning the amatory adventures of a “young man from Eau Claire” or to his friend, the similarly exuberant “young plumber from Leigh”?
(Decided too late that mine works better if “the whole Cambridge board” is replaced with “the Woke Cambridge board” / and the last line tweaked to get a rhyme between “fraud” and “ensured”, ie –
“A Professor professing at Ghent
Discovered his colleague was bent.
To the Woke Cambridge board
He said: “Arday’s a fraud!”
They ensured that it’s Cofnas who went…”
(If Nathan ever sees it, I hope it gives him a smile. He could probably use some cheering-up right now, poor chap.)
PS: Did everyone see Scottish comedian Leo Kearse’s excellent joke? “Who shot J.Arday? His tragic death – assumed to be suicide – but it’s also possible his pants were on fire…
Phil Copson says
“A Professor professing at Ghent
Discovered a colleague was bent.
To the whole Cambridge board
He said: “Arday’s a fraud!” –
To hide it – it’s Cofnas who went…”
Winston 101 says
Dear Phil Copson,
Thank you for your limerick . It’s amazing to me how a good laugh at a monster can help one to keep up the fight.
Keep up the good work.
Phil Copson says
Thanks, Winston. Given all the “heavy lifting” that Robert, Hugh, and others have done for decades – it’s nice to be able to chip-in occasionally – my limerick even got a response from Hugh. (I wonder if Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas are amenable to a limerick…? LOL)
Actually though – I think the “DEI” stuff is the least part of the scandal: They didn’t appoint Arday not knowing that he wasn’t up to the job – they picked him exactly BECAUSE he wasn’t, and being black meant that they would be able to keep him in post way longer than any other similarly useless candidate, by the standard tactic of accusing his students, his colleagues, journalists – and anyone else who noticed that he was a lying, blathering buffoon – of being a “waycist”.
Arday was their willing DEI dupe – eager to take the income and the accolades, but not realising that his usefulness to the Hillary Cremins and Lord Woolleys of this world, was as a tool to be exploited to fulfill the Left-wing dream – not simply of “Marching through the Institutions” – but of trampling them into the dirt.
Ernie says
Firing Nathan Cofnas is a disguised deed of pure antisemitism , nothing else . This University of Ghent is digging its own grave .
Brent Horton says
Our Higher Learning Institutions are riddled with Marxist Elites.
Luchtpint says
According to https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/aug/01/playbooks-plagiarism-pigs-head-new-claims-surrounding-cambridge-professor-jason-arday
Cofnas, a self-defined “race realist”, was sacked by Cambridge’s Emmanuel College in 2024 and underwent a disciplinary investigation into the blogpost about black academics. The investigation concluded that Cofnas was not guilty of “discrimination or harassment”, and that his views, “while seen by many as offensive, did not breach the law and did not contravene university regulations designed to uphold free speech”.
So, that was before he came to work at Ghent University.