Lecturer is banned from giving talk on free speech at his own university after being blasted by hard-Left activists

A lecturer has been prevented from giving a talk about free speech at his own university after he was criticised by hard-Left activists.

Dr Adam Perkins, who teaches psychology at King’s College London, was told his event was being postponed because it had been assessed as ‘high risk’.

The talk, which was scheduled to take place on campus yesterday, was called The Scientific Importance of Free Speech.

But officials became worried it could be gatecrashed by demonstrators who are opposed to Dr Perkins’s research.

The academic, who has worked at King’s for eight years specialising in the neurobiology of personality, has been targeted online by hard-Left activists in recent years.

They branded him ‘racist’ because of research he did about US president Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries, and also claimed a book he wrote about the welfare state is offensive to the poor.

His planned talk at the Libertarian Society, a student organisation, was postponed by the university authorities, who said they could not ‘manage the event safely’.

Yesterday Dr Perkins said: ‘I am disappointed that my lecture on the scientific importance of free speech has been postponed.

‘Free speech in science is crucial because it means different opinions can be debated. ‘If we allow one side of the debate to be silenced because it is deemed “wrong-think”, we will remove its balancing effect and thus impede the development of scientific understanding.’

‘By no means was this a controversial event, as the value of free speech to scientific discovery cannot be questioned.’

SOURCE