Farrukh Dhondy | Nathan Cofnas, Race-realist Who Led Witch-hunt Against Jason Arday

“Memory is blessed with all that time we spent

The moments that inevitably went

Into the past. Yes, Time rules all our lives

It’s futile, even silly, to relent.

The moving finger writes — you know the verse

Time is a blessing — not ever a curse

Though human frailty sometimes makes us wish

We could induce Time to work in reverse.”

— From Rubaiyat-e-Rumbaba

Jason Arday took his own life in a London flat last week and this week 30,000 people gathered on the streets of London to hold a vigil in his memory and support his grieving friends and family.

Who was Jason Arday? Why did he take his own life? Why did his suicide induce thousands to express their sympathy on London’s streets and on social media? Very many academics and the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, expressed their sorrow and condolences.

Jason was a 41-year-old professor of the sociology of education at Cambridge University. He was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, having a doctorate in his subject from one of the Liverpool Universities and having taught at several universities before his appointment.

Yes, people do kill themselves, but thousands don’t gather in vigils for their souls or memories. Neither do Prime Ministers and Chancellors of universities offer their sincere condolences.

So what was so unusual about this suicide? The circumstances that brought it about?

Jason Arday was black. So what? So he was, in his position, hounded because of it and the persecution became a nationally reported affair and led to his fatal despair.

An unusual and monstrous manifestation of racism stepped out of the shadows. Yes, gentle reader, as an Indian ‘immigrant’ I’ve faced all manner of racist discrimination — if you can call being bombed out of your second floor flat by a fire bomb ‘racism’. Then there were other less life-threatening incidents — being turned away by landlords when attempting to rent a room; not being served in pubs; being beaten up by four thugs outside a club where I’d had a pleasant evening with four female, white colleagues…

None of it led me to despair.

So what happened to Jason? It started in July. An ex-academic of Cambridge University, one Nathan Cofnas, who labels himself a ‘race realist’, began the hounding of Jason by publicly accusing him of having constructed his doctorate thesis by plagiarising the work of other scholars. Cofnas alleged that large portions of Arday’s work had been lifted from the research and theses of previous sociologists.

There followed demands for a detailed investigation into Jason Arday’s qualifications and claims of having lectured at other universities before being appointed to the Cambridge post. As his position and qualifications were questioned, there emerged a demand for an investigation into the academic process through which he was appointed as a professor. It is alleged that Arday achieved the elevation to his professorship through ‘concessional’ considerations.

The ‘Master’ of Jesus College, Cambridge is, since 2019, a lady called Sonita Alleyne who is the first woman and the only black individual to hold that position. It is now alleged that she influenced Arday’s appointment.

Jason Arday replied to the accusation of plagiarism by claiming that he was born autistic and only began to speak at the age of 11 and only learned to read and write at the age of 18. He said he might have, through a lapse of memory during his research, made the mistake of transcribing passages of the work of others or indeed learning from it and justifiably using its arguments.

The central fact to emerge through this affair about plagiarism and false credentials, none of which has been subjected to proper independent scrutiny, is not to do with Arday, but rather to do with the stance and motives of Nathan Cofnas.

Cofnas is an unabashed racist. He has made no secret of his view that black individuals “can only excel at sport and entertainment” and that their promotion through the ranks of Western meritocracy is either undeserved positive-discrimination or some corrupt practice. It’s a very peculiar opinion for a supposed ‘academic’ to hold. I have no access to Master Cofnas, but would like to ask him if his view applies to Asians and to Chinese? Does it apply to the black Nobel prize-winners? To Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, James Baldwin… (forget it, I can’t be bothered to continue with an endless list!)

What I will say is that in my short and happy life I have come across and befriended several black individuals whose intellect, writing and achievements are outstanding. A few of them were not, in simple terms, startling achievers, but their work and careers certainly intruded into and shaped chunks of history.

C.L.R. James’ books are, to my mind, the best Marxist expositions of his and succeeding generations. Then my late friend Darcus Howe, born in Trinidad and; like myself, an ‘immigrant’ to Britain, contributed in the most distinctive and effective way to the integration and progress of the new communities of this sceptred (and in some aspects racist) isle.

There will now certainly be an investigation in Cambridge as to Jason’s qualifications and into the allegations of plagiarism. I know that Master Cofnas was sacked in 2024 from his position in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for his views on ‘hereditarianism’ — which should really be labelled by its true name of ‘racist bulltoss’.