The Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) has hit out at the suspension by Ghent University of Dr Nathan Cofnas after he exposed the plagiarism of the late Cambridge Professor, Jason Arday.
In an open letter, CAF said it is “deeply concerned” by the move and that “while we take no view on the merits of Dr Cofnas’s — or any other scholar’s — views beyond the question of whether they are lawful, the reasons now given for his suspension raise grave questions of academic freedom and set a potentially dangerous precedent for its restriction.”
It says that Ghent’s suspension letter “relies extensively not on alleged misconduct by Dr Cofnas, but on the reactions of others to his appointment and public activity.”
“It repeatedly converts the scale of that opposition into evidence supporting disciplinary intervention: a student campaign established specifically to oppose his appointment, a petition signed by more than 2,000 students, complaints from staff, more than 100 emails to the University, the withdrawal of a guest lecturer and the prospect of an academic boycott.”
“That is perilously close to an institutionalised heckler’s veto: the greater the hostility generated by protected speech, the stronger the case for restricting the speaker,” it said.
As Gript reported yesterday, the letter of suspension was signed by Petra (Paul) De Sutter, the vice-rector of the university.
In the letter, he wrote,”we wish to be clear about the values we uphold as a university. 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.
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.
The death of Professor Arday should prompt reflection. We hope that lessons will be learnt from what has happened regarding the way we treat one another both within and outside the academic world, particularly when people become the subject of public controversy.”
CAF says, “The perverse incentive this creates should be obvious. If opponents of an academic know that mobilising sufficient complaints, petitions, boycotts and disruption can itself become evidence that the academic’s continued employment is causing unacceptable “unrest”, an institution effectively provides a roadmap for getting controversial scholars suspended.”
“Former ACLU director Ira Glasser once compared speech restrictions to poison gas: attractive when the weapon is in your hands, and your opponent is in your sights, but rather less so when the political wind changes direction.”
“The same warning applies when a heckler’s veto is allowed, almost by default, to become part of an institution’s disciplinary reasoning. Once the threshold for intervention is lowered in this way, the principle becomes available for use against academics of every political and intellectual persuasion, depending only on who happens to be holding the institutional levers,” it wrote.
CAF said that the “ protection” of academic freedom “cannot depend on how successfully an academic’s opponents are able to mobilise pressure against them.”
It concluded by urging Ghent University to “correct course”, stating that, if it “believes Dr Cofnas has committed misconduct, it should specify that misconduct and assess it on its merits.”
“[O]pposition, outrage and reputational pressure generated by lawful academic expression cannot properly substitute for a disciplinary case,” it said.
Since Arday’s death, Cofnas has been called a “racist” online, including by Harry Potter author J.K Rowling.
Arday was lauded as the youngest Black professor at the prestigious university where he taught the sociology of education, and had made claims such as being non-verbal until the age of 11 and not being able to read until the age of 18.
Arday claimed to have been non-verbal until the age of 11, and was diagnosed with global developmental delay affecting his ability to talk and read, with therapists and career advisers reportedly predicting he would spend his adult life in assisted living requiring lifelong support.
He also claimed to have been illiterate until he was 18, saying he only learned to read and write at that age, and said he received a dyslexia diagnosis in his first year of university.
He said he could attend mainstream school only one day a week as a young boy, and once at school full-time was frequently pulled from class for disruptive behaviour and taken to a small room with one window.
Arday also claimed to have raised 5 million pounds for charity, to have run 600 miles in six days, and to have completed 30 marathons in 35 days, running the last ten with a cracked fibula.
He claimed academic positions including visiting professorships at the University of Glasgow, Ohio State University, and Nelson Mandela University.
The scandal broke after Cofnas published evidence of plagiarism in respect of Arday’s work on his personal Substack.