A former University of Cambridge academic who exposed the plagiarism of former Professor Jason Arday, has been suspended by Ghent University in Flanders, Belgium.
Arday has since died following allegations of plagiarism. “Ghent University stands for respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred and racism. We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. However, that freedom is not unlimited. It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others,” the university said in a statement.
“For this reason, the university takes the recent public statements made by a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University regarding this matter very seriously. Ghent University has decided to take appropriate action within its powers and the applicable framework. We do not wish to pre-empt any potential decisions at this stage, in order to maintain objectivity. It is important to be transparent, whilst also respecting the confidentiality inherent in a personnel file.”
Confas addressed his suspension on social media, writing, “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.”
“The decision was made by rector Petra De Sutter, a former leader of the Green Party.”
Confas recently exposed Arday’s “metamorphosis from arguably the most disadvantaged person in the UK to elite scholar-athlete-philanthropist” in a Substack post. Cofnas highlighted issues in Arday’s dissertation and other publications, going on to express: “When you take away the work that is plagiarized or not otherwise written by Arday, there is essentially nothing resembling real scholarship. There is no indication that Arday is familiar with even elementary statistics. His research involves reporting his own experiences of alleged racism or having conversations with people and providing subjective commentary.”
