U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White on Friday condemned the decision made by Ghent University to suspend researcher Nathan Cofnas over his plagiarism accusations against Jason Arday.<\/p>\n
White said on the social platform X<\/a> the decision made by the university to put Cofnas under investigation was “retaliation against an American scholar following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud.”<\/p>\n The ambassador also announced, “We are therefore reviewing any relationships we have with Ghent University.”<\/p>\n “Dishonest, corrupt institutions that engage in, or reward, scapegoating mob behavior are not desirable partners for us,” White stated.<\/p>\n Arday was in the news in 2023 when Cambridge University hailed him as the youngest Black professor in the institution’s history. Three years later, Arday was accused in the news<\/a> of plagiarizing his academic work, which he denied.\u00a0<\/p>\n He was found dead Aug. 14 in his South London home.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cofnas, a former Cambridge researcher who left the university after his remarks about diversity programs and minorities sparked widespread protests, said in a July 21 article<\/a> that he had found evidence of Arday’s plagiarism.<\/p>\n “Many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source,” he wrote about Arday’s 2015 dissertation.<\/p>\n He added that retired Plymouth Marjon University professor Dave Harris had raised concerns<\/a> about Arday allegedly plagiarizing subsequent academic articles, which caused two academic journals to issue corrections.<\/p>\n Ghent University notified the public Thursday that a staff member was under “preliminary disciplinary investigation” and had been suspended as a precaution. The university declined to give details “in order to safeguard the confidentiality of the personnel file and the disciplinary proceedings.”<\/p>\n Cofnas said Thursday on social media<\/a> he was under investigation by Ghent University “for discriminating against Arday.”<\/p>\n Rector Petra De Sutter and vice rector Herwig Reynaert shared in a statement<\/a> on Thursday about Arday’s death that “Ghent University stands for respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism.”<\/p>\n “We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. However, that freedom is not unlimited,” they said.<\/p>\n Ghent University did not respond to The Hill’s request for immediate comment.<\/p>\n