The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday – Byline Times
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The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday
The media’s coverage of the academic’s life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network
Nafeez Ahmed
18 August 2026
Hundreds of articles were written about Jason Arday in the weeks before he died. Photo: Alamy
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Jason Arday, a 41-year-old academic who resigned as Cambridge’s Professor of Sociology of Education, was found dead on Friday following intense scrutiny of many aspects of his qualifications and personal life by the majority of the established press.
His coordinated targeting by an explicitly anti-black race science network did not come out of nowhere, Byline Times can reveal.
Backed by the pro-Trump Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, this network has spent a decade penetrating Cambridge University before reaching Reform UK, Restore Britain, and the pan-European far-right.
This phase of the campaign against Jason Arday began when academic and anti-black racist Nathan Cofnas raised claims of plagiarism in Arday’s work in a Substack post last month.
The story it fuelled was then dissected in more than 200 articles across the majority of the British press in the weeks that followed, both in print and online.
It was striking that many of these articles did not acknowledge that the central accusations were being made by a man who believes that inherited racial differences make black people less intelligent and would leave black people absent from virtually every elite position in public life outside of sport and entertainment.
They also did not mention that Cofnas had used the terms “retarded”, “illiterate”, and “mentally disabled” to describe Jason Arday, while noting that he was “black”.
Cofnas said that an unidentified male Cambridge faculty member had supplied him with information about Arday. Before even examining Arday’s PhD thesis, completed at Liverpool John Moores University, Cofnas had dismissed him as “just another DEI hire”, referring to ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ schemes.
At the ideological centre of the network is Aporia, an online magazine which serves as the public-facing arm of the Human Diversity Foundation – now known as Polygenic Scores.
The Human Diversity Foundation was a rebranded and relaunched version of the Nazi-era Pioneer Fund, which sought to mainstream its eugenics doctrines through Aporia.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has cultivated ties to key actors in this network: to Cambridge Professor James Orr, through whom he channelled a donation to Cambridge; to Orr’s Cambridge circle; to online magazine Quillette which published attacks on Arday; and directly to Nathan Cofnas and Aporia senior editor Noah Carl.
Orr linked this infrastructure to politics. Reform UK’s Head of Policy, and an advisor to the Free Speech Union organisation, he invited Aporia into national conservatism.
At The Sanctuary, a right wing hub in Westminster, Aporia and the Orr-backed Cambridge Scrutonian Society have separate offices provided by cryptobillionaire Ben Delo.
Delo gave Reform £4 million in early 2026. He has also sponsored the Free Speech Union.
By understanding this network and its ideology, a more accurate picture can be developed of the motivations behind the disproportionate attacks on Jason Arday that continued even after his resignation from Cambridge University.
A vigil in Trafalgar Square was held for Jason Arday on 17 August 2026. Photo: Getty
‘A Random Black Person’
On 21 July, Nathan Cofnas published the article which launched the campaign against Jason Arday.
Titled ‘DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge’, he portrayed Arday’s appointment to Cambridge University in 2023 as evidence that it had “grabbed a random black person” and abandoned academic standards in pursuit of diversity.
On 9 August, Cofnas said that a male faculty member at Cambridge University – who he said he was not allowed to name – had contacted him on 13 June with information about Jason Arday. He referred to this person as a whistleblower who feared professional retaliation.
Cofnas then examined Arday’s PhD thesis and published his allegations about alleged plagiarism.
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) had already formally tested the central allegation about Arday’s PhD the previous year, following claims by The Times and The Telegraph.
Its inquiry found citation defects but did not uphold plagiarism,...