Alexander Bard ported from student conference: “Everyone should feel safe”

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Published 24 September 2022 at 21.06

Domestic. Alexander Bard was to give a speech at a student conference in Linköping – but his participation was canceled with reference to the value base and that “everyone should feel safe”. Academic Rights Watch reports.
“Stalinists”, reads Bard's assessment of those responsible.

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The KVIT conference is organized every year by students on the cognitive science program at Linköping University.

The purpose is stated to be to promote collaborations between students, researchers and companies from Sweden and Europe with a focus on cognitive science . On its website, the conference claims that “there is a wide range of speakers and topics”.

At this year's KVIT conference, on September 20, Alexander Bard was invited as a lecturer on the theme “Your Brain in the Digital World : A modern survival guide for our digitalized society”.

But the lecture was cancelled, and Academic Rights Watch – which monitors academic freedom in Sweden – has reviewed how it happened.

ARW has read an email from the chairman of the organizing committee, Victor Karlströmer, from 1 September. In the email it appears that the invitation of Alexander Bard raised “contemplations and some criticism”. It is stated that Bard “made several problematic statements and is a controversial figure”.

For this reason, the committee expresses understanding for “the potential problem of us giving a platform to a person who has previously expressed himself in a way that is not compatible with the section and the basic values ​​of the program”.

In the email is further referred to that “the KogVet program should be welcoming to everyone, and that LiU has a strong value base for discrimination in all its forms”. It is emphasized that “the program should have an inclusive environment where everyone should feel safe”.

The organizing committee then held a vote on the matter and the result was that Alexander Bard's lecture was cancelled.

On Twitter Alexander Bard himself comments on the incident and accuses those responsible at Linköping University of being “Stalinists”.

< p>The fact that young people in Sweden turn to the radical right is not so strange, but a way of saying “fuck you” to the “completely corrupt and decadent woke left”, notes Bard further.