Cambridge University has thrown out dozens of complaints against an academic philosopher accused of racism, ruling that his views on “hereditarianism” and what he called the “DEI devil” were protected under its new freedom of speech policy.
The decision is one of the first major tests of Cambridge’s new code of practice on free expression, adopted last year ahead of the commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. The code guarantees that academics may “question and test received wisdom, and… put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions” without fear of sanction.
An internal investigation was launched after 58 students lodged complaints against Dr Nathan Cofnas, who in 2022 was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship in philosophy and became a research associate at Emmanuel College.
The complaints followed a blog post in which Cofnas advanced what he calls “race realism”, arguing that under a true meritocracy black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”. Harvard faculty, he wrote, “would be recruited from the best of the best students, which means the number of black professors would approach zero per cent”.
Cofnas also urged an end to the “war on nature”, insisting that “talent is not distributed equally within or across groups”, and called for a “hereditarian revolution” against what he described as the “DEI devil”, which, he claimed, has “brainwashed generations of children to believe that intractable group differences are the fault of a particular race (whites)”.
When the blog came to light it sparked uproar across the university. More than 1,200 people signed a petition demanding his dismissal, protesters chanted “fire Nathan Cofnas” outside college buildings, and flyers with his photograph were plastered across campus. One student even accused him of having “blood on his hands”, while Emmanuel College’s Junior Common Room denounced his “racist views”.
At a college ‘town hall’ event convened to discuss his position, Lord Woolley, principal of Homerton College, told students: “I see it for what it is. Abhorrent racism, masquerading as pseudo-intellect… There is no place for bigots in institutions like this.” Professor Bhaskar Vira, Cambridge’s pro-vice-chancellor for education, also told a philosophy faculty meeting that Cofnas had “crossed a line” on free speech.
Emmanuel College initially defended his “academic right, as enshrined by law, to write about his views”, but later cut ties, calling the blog “a rejection of diversity, equality, and inclusion” and incompatible with its “core values and mission”.
However, The Times has learnt that the university’s disciplinary body, which is separate from the college, has now rejected all 58 complaints.
External lawyers commissioned by Cambridge examined whether Cofnas’s blog “could potentially” encourage discrimination or create a hostile environment for black staff and students, but concluded that threshold was not met. In what appears to be a marked shift from the prevailing hurt-feelings orthodoxy on campus, where claims of offence have for many years sufficed to trigger sanctions, investigators focused not on the emotional fallout but on the substance of the arguments themselves. Despite acknowledging that students “experienced distress and upset after reading the blog”, they pointed out that the complaints were directed mainly at “the ideas communicated in the blog which the complainants found fundamentally objectionable”. It therefore followed that there was no breach because, taken as a whole, the post was “an acceptable expression of academic freedom” and “represented lawful free speech”.
Cofnas, who was relieved of his teaching duties in March 2024 and is understood to have left Cambridge when his three-year fellowship ended, is now pursuing legal action against Emmanuel College, arguing that its decision to sever his affiliation amounted to unlawful discrimination on the basis of philosophical belief.
Cambridge said in a statement: “The university is committed to addressing racism, discrimination and harassment… At the same time, the university must secure and promote freedom of speech and provide an environment for open and sometimes robust debate.
“This can be a difficult path to navigate, particularly when arguments, while remaining within the law, cause deep offence. All members of our community are encouraged to exercise their rights to freedom of speech, including to challenge ideas or theories they disagree with.”
As the university’s statement makes clear, Cofnas’s case highlights a new fault line in UK higher education: between institutions’ longstanding equality and harassment duties under the Equality Act 2010 and their fresh statutory obligation to protect free speech. The outcome is likely to reverberate far beyond Cambridge. For critics of the culture of hurt feelings that has flourished on campus, it suggests the balance may be shifting: under the new legal framework, the fact that an idea causes offence will no longer, on its own, be enough to justify a sanction.
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