Oriel College Faces Calls to Cancel Controversial Nathan Cofnas Event
Student group Reform Society has booked a talk by Nathan Cofnas at Oriel College, prompting an open letter demanding the venue be withdrawn.
Event details and organizers
The Harris lecture theatre at Oriel College, University of Oxford, is set to host a talk titled “An evening with Nathan Cofnas: Is DEI undermining higher education?” on 17 November. The event has been arranged by the Oxon Universities’ Reform Society (OURS), a student group created this year to support Reform UK.
Background on the speaker
Nathan Cofnas is a blogger and academic who has previously been accused of promoting pseudoscientific ideas about racial difference. He has also made unproven plagiarism accusations against the late Jason Arday, a 41‑year‑old former Cambridge professor who was found dead in August after resigning amid intense media scrutiny.
Calls for cancellation
An open letter signed by Oxford campaign groups, British academics, members of the public and Oxford alumni urges Oriel College to “withdraw its facilities from the event.” The signatories argue the talk could:
Create a hostile and exclusionary environment for students, especially those of ethnic minorities.
Undermine Oriel’s reputation as a world‑class educational institution in 2026, the year of its 700th anniversary.
Provide a platform for discriminatory beliefs, with Cofnas’s blogging cited as influential in the coverage of Arday.
Reactions from scholars
Days before Arday’s death, Kehinde Andrews—the author and the UK’s first professor of Black studies—told the Guardian that Arday was the target of “a dedicated, coordinated smear campaign from the right, based on the premise that Black people should not be at Cambridge.” Andrews later described the Oriel event as “despicable and disgusting” in an online post.
College’s response
Oriel College issued a statement affirming its statutory duty to uphold freedom of speech, even for views many find “deeply offensive.” The college added that it also seeks to promote inclusion and protect members from discrimination and harassment. It noted that permitting an event “does not imply endorsement by the college of the views of its speakers” and that security and safety are taken seriously when reviewing booking requests.
OURS’s defence
In a post on X, OURS claimed that “Nathan Cofnas and the event organisers have been subjected to a disturbing torrent of online hostility.”
The debate highlights the tension between free expression and the responsibility to maintain a safe, inclusive academic environment.
