The discussion arose after Cofnas shared a clip from his TV appearance, where viewers noted his halting speech and deliberate phrasing amid his earlier scrutiny of Arday’s academic record. Arday, once Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, resigned following plagiarism revelations and was later found dead; Cofnas now faces suspension at Ghent University. Commenters like Carl Benjamin and Professor Abhishek Saha agreed on Cofnas’s high-functioning autistic traits from personal observations, while Cofnas himself says his social skills lag and he seems more autistic than Arday. Critics like Priyamvada Gopal warn against remote diagnoses, highlighting debates on neurodiversity and public pressures.
It’s astonishing to me that more isn’t made of Nathan Cofnas’s distinctively autistic presentation and Jason Arday’s distinctively non-autistic one https://t.co/EH5fVOAYM7
— Stella O'Malley (@stellaomalley3) August 23, 2026
This is a good point. Arday was clearly charming and personable, whereas Cofnas is clearly not brilliant in social situations. https://t.co/QVYvOVKG07
— Carl Benjamin 🏴 (@Sargon_of_Akkad) August 23, 2026
it's not especially astonishing to me
the majority of non-autists who like to Celebrate Autism don't really want to celebrate real autists, they want to feel good about themselves
in other words, they don't want intense disagreeable hyper-literal pedants, they want pets https://t.co/eWLWlgOgW0
— N. Bourbaki, Professor of Logic at Science U (@d08890) August 23, 2026
Yes it is. I was reluctant to post this for this reason. But we live in a world where certain traits are typically perceived as autistic traits and it’s notable that Jason Arday really didn’t display any of these traits and Nathan Cofnas really does.
— Stella O'Malley (@stellaomalley3) August 23, 2026
