Protest planned at Oxford University talk by academic who accused Jason Arday of plagiarism

A protest is planned against an event at Oxford University's Oriel College featuring Nathan Cofnas, the academic who accused the late Professor Jason Arday of plagiarism.

The talk, organised by Oxford Reform UK, is titled An Evening with Nathan Cofnas: Is DEI Undermining Higher Education? and is due to take place on 17 November.

Stand Up to Racism has organised the protest against the event.

Mr Cofnas, who has advocated for “race realism”, wrote a blog accusing Prof Arday, who was Cambridge University’s youngest ever Black professor, of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis.

Prof Arday resigned in August, saying that he had faced “an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack”. He said that he was not a “liar”, but “the only way to bring this chapter to an end is to step away”.

The 41-year-old was found dead at his home in south London just days later. An inquest is under way, with a coroner previously saying that he died an “unnatural death”.

His memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, was published posthumously,

In a statement issued through publisher Simon & Schuster, Prof Arday’s family said: “To the very end, Jason was clear that he wanted his memoir to be published and it is only right that we honour his wishes.”

A profile of the upcoming talk on Eventbrite said that Mr Cofnas “faced recent controversy after exposing the plagiarism of Jason Arday”.

Mr Cofnas has previously written that Black people are less intelligent than other groups and would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment” under a meritocratic system.

He was suspended from Ghent University in Belgium in August, but was later reinstated after pressure by US ambassador Bill White.

Following Prof Arday’s death, more than 30,000 people attended a vigil for him in Trafalgar Square.

Speakers at the event criticised press coverage of Prof Arday, with the veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott saying he had been the subject of a “vicious” and “bitter” campaign by people who did not believe a Black man should be a Cambridge professor, and the crossbench peer Lord Woolley describing his death as a “public execution” and a “lynching”.