Written by Wafi Ali
From 20 to 28 August 2026, 952 academics signed an open letter “opposing punishment of Dr. Nathan Cofnas for whistleblowing”, 14 of whom were associated with LSE.
The open letter defined academic freedom as “the ability to scrutinise the scholarship of other academics”, including “providing evidence of academic misconduct” whilst defending “rigorous self-policing” by scholars.
This came after Cofnas – a vocal critic of DEI and a self-defined “race realist” philosopher of biology – was placed under a preliminary disciplinary investigation and precautionarily suspended by Ghent University.
Primarily, he was investigated for his extensive public allegations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, the late Cambridge professor, who Cofnas deemed an “extreme example” of a mismatch between a person’s qualifications and the position they have been granted as a result of DEI.
In Ghent University’s suspension letter, Rector Petra de Sutter stated that Cofnas “framed the ‘exposure’ of a colleague not as scholarly debate but as a victorious act” and that by “publicly calling to ‘purge’ institutions of those [he] labelled as ideological enemies, [he had] created a climate of severe psychosocial distress”.
Cofnas publicly claimed to have put numerous works of Arday through a plagiarism detection software, which he said found many passages copied with “minimal editing” and some that “retained copy-editing mistakes from the original”.
Arday, who became the youngest black Cambridge professor in 2023, resigned as a professor of sociology of education a week before his passing on 14 August 2026.
He admitted to some errors in his past academic work, stating that, as an autistic person, he relied on using mimicry at times to make sense of information. Whilst some universities opened investigations into his appointments and associated work, Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday his PhD in 2015, concluded that he had not plagiarised his work.
But scrutiny of Arday’s academic work soon snowballed beyond academia to his other accolades, such as his 600 mile run over six days, and his £5.5 million fundraiser for charity. He believed his “criticism” had far surpassed “scholarly disagreement”, and instead resulted in him being “unacceptably” named a “liar” and a “fantasist”.
Arday “wasn’t coping with the loss of his career, [nor] with the loss of his reputation”, according to Cambridge professor Simon Baron-Cohen, who was in contact with Arday hours before his death. Between 25 July and 20 August 2026, a staggering 242 substantive articles about Arday’s allegations had been published.
Ghent argued that Cofnas had diverted from the “future of liberalism”- the research domain outlined in his contract – to what Cofnas himself described as “race differences in intelligence”.
Members of Ghent’s philosophy department also alleged Cofnas had a “far-right agenda” and “very limited expertise” for his role; 2,000 students had also previously signed a petition against his initial appointment to the university, fearing the validation of pseudoscience.
Cofnas had shown a particular interest in this research area during his prematurely terminated Cambridge fellowship, when in February 2024, he published a guide on his Substack to the “Hereditarian Revolution”. Making aberrant remarks reportedly backed by Harvard statistics, he claimed that under a “colour-blind” meritocracy, black people “would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment” and “black professors would approach 0%”.
In a Substack post in 2023, Cofnas described how to remove “wokester” academics, suggesting some had “minimal criteria” for contract renewal.
Many experts have plainly disagreed with Cofnas’ ideas, with one study refuting the common misconstructions by scholars studying links between race and genetics.
Cofnas’ suspension and the petition thereafter have called into question the boundaries of academic freedom and the levels of confidentiality and transparency with which academic investigations should be conducted, especially in cases attracting relentless media bombardment.
Rector de Sutter explicitly stated that “[academic freedom] is not unlimited. It goes hand-in-hand with responsibility and may be restricted to protect the rights of others.”
It is disputed whether Cofnas’ actions were conducted out of “vengeance” towards Cambridge (in the words of historian David Starkey), stemmed from racial beliefs, or were simply an exercise of ‘academic freedom’.
Thousands are mourning Arday’s passing and have paid tribute to his values of “kindness and gentleness”, including through a vigil in August organised by Stand Up to Racism.
An LSE spokesperson commented: “The news of Jason Arday’s death was incredibly sad and deeply distressing for many members of our community, and we encourage anyone affected to access LSE’s wellbeing services.
“The signatures for this letter were not presented as reflecting anything other than the individual views of the faculty who signed. Faculty often sign letters like this, including with their professional affiliation, and done in this form, they are understood to reflect individual and not institutional positions.
“At the same time, LSE as an institution does not issue statements that distance itself from the speech of its faculty so long as the speech is lawful. Were the university to make a statement, the potential chilling effect on other speech would become unavoidable.
“Other members of the School community may strongly disagree with the signatories and express this clearly. It is central to LSE’s mission that staff and students from all sides can express diverse ideas and views freely, if they are lawful.
“The School endeavours to provide a platform to facilitate discussion and critical debate, within the law, where the views of all parties are treated with respect. Our duties in relation to free speech are also enshrined in UK law by the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. LSE has an obligation to adhere to this via our Code of Practice on Free Speech.
“We can also be clear that LSE does not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or bullying in any form directed at individuals within our community. We have codes of conduct and robust reporting mechanisms, including our online Report + Support platform, to address instances of discrimination, harassment, and bullying when they occur.”
Nathan Cofnas was approached for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.
