Nathan Cofnas to face legal action in Belgium for alleged racism

A Belgian anti-discrimination body is to push for the prosecution of suspended Ghent University academic Nathan Cofnas for racism.

Cofnas, an American postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, was the first person to publicly accuse the late Cambridge professor Jason Arday of plagiarism. He describes himself as a “race realist” and argues that genes play a “non-trivial role” in intelligence differences between racial groups. 

Unia, which describes itself as “an independent public institution that promotes equality and combats discrimination”, said in a statement on its website, published on 30 September, that Cofnas was “spreading a message in our country that would establish a hierarchy amongst human beings on the basis of so-called scientific knowledge, in order to justify discrimination based on origin or skin colour, or to promote forms of segregation”.

According to Unia, such statements “contravene [Belgian] anti-racism legislation and the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).”

However, the organisation declined to elaborate, explaining that it reserved “the arguments underpinning this action for the courts”.

Taking to X to share the news about the legal complaint, Cofnas wrote that it marked the “beginning of the formal process to put me in jail”, adding that he has “been advised that I need a criminal lawyer”.

Cofnas declined a request for further comment by Times Higher Education.

The news comes a month after Ghent University’s, whose department of philosophy and moral sciences employed him as a postdoctoral researcher, suspended him and  opened “a preliminary disciplinary investigation”. The university said it could not “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.”

Ghent came under heavy fire for hiring Cofnas in the wake of Arday’s death in August, following weeks of intense press scrutiny of the black Cambridge professor’s claimed academic and personal achievements. Cofnas was hired in March of this year, and when challenged, Ghent initially defended his appointment, stating that he “was selected as the most suitable candidate following a procedurally correct and duly conducted selection process”. 

Cofnas was previously sacked from his position as a research fellow in philosophy at Emmanual College, Cambridge in 2024 after he wrote a blog post claiming that in the absence of DEI “Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.”

rosalind.skillen@timeshighereducation.com