The tragic death of Jason Arday has sparked calls to punish Ghent University researcher Nathan Cofnas, who first exposed Arday’s plagiarism and deceptions. Cofnas has now been suspended by Ghent University and says that he expects to be fired. Many people rightly find Cofnas’s racist views abhorrent and his personal attacks on Arday distasteful. But Cofnas’s critiques of Arday were completely legitimate, regardless of his motives. And the attempt to punish him because Arday died by suicide is a threat to academic freedom. Professors should not be investigated or punished for their political views merely because they express controversial ideas publicly, as I argued here two decades ago when Ward Churchill (who died earlier this month) was fired by the University of Colorado after making offensive comments about Sept. 11.
One blogger described a letter supporting Cofnas’s academic freedom as “the Arday Lynching Letter Defending Cofnas.”
Of course, Arday was not lynched; he reportedly died by suicide. Suicide is caused by mental illness, not by criticism. And we must not ban criticism in the name of protecting the mentally ill; suicidal thoughts are so widespread across a vast range of views that a “suicidal” exemption to free speech would have to encompass any critiques of anyone.
