Dr Nathan Cofnas will return to work at Ghent University on 29 August and is expected to complete his one-year postdoctoral appointment after the US ambassador to Belgium announced an “amicable” agreement to lift his preventive suspension – even as the institution itself insists that its disciplinary investigation remains ongoing and that he must work remotely, may not teach and may attend campus only with the Rector’s prior written permission.
Cofnas, whose academic work includes controversial hereditarian and “race realist” scholarship, was initially suspended on 20 August after Ghent opened a preliminary disciplinary investigation into his conduct following the death of Dr Jason Arday, Cambridge University’s youngest ever black professor, whose work and academic record Cofnas had subjected to public scrutiny.
Following Dr Arday’s death, Ghent said it took Cofnas’s public statements “very seriously” and suspended him the following day as a precautionary measure while it considered whether there were sufficient grounds to refer the case to its competent disciplinary body “for further consideration”.
The decision prompted an open letter, signed by more than 900 academics expressing concern that the disciplinary proceedings “appear[ed] to constitute retaliation, at least in part, for publicizing academic misconduct that occurred in British universities”, and argued that “an essential component of academic freedom is the ability to scrutinize the scholarship of other academics”. A rival open letter organised by Ghent academics, rejected attempts to frame the investigation as punishment for controversial research, and argued that the institution had “ample reasons for a disciplinary investigation grounded in its own code of ethical conduct”.
On Thursday, however, Bill White, the US ambassador to Belgium, took to X to say that he had spoken to “all parties” and that Ghent and Cofnas had reached an agreement to lift the American academic’s suspension.
“I look forward to working with Ghent University rector Petra De Sutter to continue the relationship between the university and the United States,” White said, adding that he was “grateful for her willingness to listen to voices calling for protecting academic freedom”.
Cofnas said in his own post on X that he expected to remain at Ghent for the rest of his appointment: “I am grateful to Rector Petra De Sutter for allowing me to stay at Ghent University. I look forward to continuing to work on the project, ‘The Future of Liberalism,’ for 60% of my working time for the remainder of my one-year postdoc.”
He also credited White’s intervention with helping to secure the outcome, saying it had been “beyond my imagination” that an ambassador would take an interest in “the fate of a postdoc”.
“The Ambassador responded with great support which helped to bring about a just outcome,” he added, thanking both the US embassy and State Department “for defending American values”.
But Ghent has now pushed back against suggestions that White’s intervention brought its disciplinary investigation to an end. The university confirmed to Belgian newspaper De Morgen on Friday that its investigation into Cofnas remains ongoing and could still lead to further disciplinary proceedings.
In a separate, guarded statement confirming “contact” with White, the university said merely that the ambassador had “provided further context regarding his statements on X”, while Ghent had briefed him on the preliminary disciplinary inquiry, the confidentiality of the procedure and the measures imposed on Cofnas.
The apparent rapprochement – at least on White’s part – follows several days of unusually sharp exchanges between the university and the United States. White had condemned Cofnas’s suspension as “retaliation against an American scholar” following “accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud”, and announced that he would review all American ties with Ghent University, including academic exchanges and research funding. “Dishonest, corrupt institutions that engage in, or reward, scapegoating mob behaviour, are not desirable partners for us,” the ambassador said.
De Sutter, meanwhile, rejected suggestions that the university’s actions improperly constrained scholarly scrutiny. In an interview with the Belgian news agency Belga on Wednesday, she said she supported academic freedom “100%” and argued that many of those criticising Ghent were unfamiliar with the contents of the disciplinary file.
Cofnas’s preventive suspension ends on 28 August. From the following day, he will instead be subject to what the university describes in correspondence seen by CAF as an “urgent disciplinary measure” under Article 64 §2 of its Staff Disciplinary Regulations.
The measure requires him to work exclusively remotely and permits him to enter university premises only with the Rector’s prior written permission or “at his or her express request”. He may not teach, grade exams or advise students, while research undertaken as part of his Ghent appointment must be strictly confined to The Future of Liberalism. He is specifically prohibited from conducting research on “race realism” or “hereditary revolution” within the scope of that appointment, or from making statements, giving lectures or otherwise communicating in a way that gives the impression that such research is being conducted within the scope of, on behalf of, or under the affiliation of Ghent University.
The measure will initially remain in force until 29 November, but may be extended by up to three months at a time, or revoked or amended earlier.
Sources with knowledge of the matter expect the preliminary disciplinary inquiry to continue until Cofnas’s contract expires, with the “urgent disciplinary measure” also remaining in place for the duration of his appointment.
The lifting of Cofnas’s preventive suspension removes the most immediate threat to his position at Ghent, but wider questions raised by the university’s handling of his case remain live.
Earlier this week, CAF wrote to the Rector and the Flemish Government Commissioner responsible for the University about Cofnas’s suspension and the ongoing disciplinary investigation. In our letter we expressed concern about two aspects of Ghent’s approach: the role that third-party opposition to Cofnas played in the decision to suspend him, and the risk that the reasoning used to justify that decision lowered the threshold for restricting controversial academic expression to subjective perceptions of harm.
Ghent’s initial suspension letter relied extensively not only on allegations concerning Dr Cofnas’s own conduct, but on the reactions of others to his appointment and public activity, including a student campaign opposing his presence at Ghent, a student petition, complaints from staff, more than 100 emails expressing concern, the withdrawal of a guest lecturer and discussion of a possible academic boycott.
The “scale and persistence” of those concerns, their “recent escalation” and the “volume and nature” of complaints were explicitly cited in support of his suspension.
It was not always clear whether this material also bore on the underlying disciplinary allegations, or where the boundary between the two lay. But that ambiguity did not remove CAF’s central concern: in either case, the intensity of third-party opposition was permitted to contribute to an adverse institutional consequence for the academic whose expression generated it.
The lifting of Cofnas’s suspension does not entirely resolve that concern. If mobilising sufficient complaints and disruption can itself now become evidence that an academic’s continued employment is causing unacceptable “unrest”, an institution risks providing a roadmap for getting controversial scholars suspended. 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. And tacit norms of this kind travel all too readily between universities and jurisdictions, even where the governing legal frameworks differ.
Other concerns raised in CAF’s letter remain relevant now that Ghent has confirmed its disciplinary investigation is continuing. We urged the university to assess each allegation on its merits and distinguish rigorously between evidence of misconduct and evidence of opposition to Cofnas’s views and public activity. Outrage and reputational pressure, we argued, cannot properly substitute for evidence that the conduct alleged satisfies the applicable legal or disciplinary standard.
The letter also questioned the threshold Ghent appears to have applied to Cofnas’s alleged conduct in his private life. Under the university’s own disciplinary rules, such conduct is disciplinable only where it is both criminally punishable and has the requisite negative impact. Evidence of distress or complaint may therefore be relevant to the second limb where the first is also satisfied, but cannot establish criminal punishability in the first place.
CAF’s letter to Rector Petra De Sutter can be read in full here.