An Evening with Nathan Cofnas: Is DEI Undermining Higher Education?

The event will begin with a talk by Cofnas on DEI and its effect on higher eduction. Cofnas will analyse whether DEI negatively influences university hiring practices and thus the quality of university academics and academia. Following his lecture, Cofnas will take questions from the audience.

Cofnas holds a DPhil in philosophy from Balliol College, Oxford. In 2022, he became A Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy at University of Cambridge and a research associate at Emmanuel College. His position at Emmanuel was terminated in 2024 on the grounds that his Substack essay on race differences “amounted to, or could reasonably be construed as amounting to, a rejection of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI and EDI) policies”. In February 2026, Cofnas took up a post at Ghent University.

Cofnas has faced recent controversy after exposing the plagiarism of Jason Arday, a Cambridge academic who was once celebrated as Cambridge's youngest black professor ever appointed by the university of Cambridge.

Cofnas's exposé raised questions regarding Arday's academic work and life story, which became the subject of high media scrutiny and raised questions over the role DEI plays in university hiring practices, and the freedom academics have in challenging the DEI narrative.