Heather Brunskell-Evans had been asked to give a talk this week on the subject of pornography and the sexualisation of young women

An academic who was no-platformed by university students after she discussed transgender issues on a radio show has attacked the “reprehensible cowardliness” of public institutions.

Heather Brunskell-Evans, a research fellow at King’s College London, who is also a spokeswoman for the Women’s Equality Party, told The Times that she believed such institutions were running scared from public debate, out of fear of offending the transgender lobby.

She had been asked by medical students from the Reproductive and Sexual Health Society at King’s to give a talk this week on the subject of pornography and the sexualisation of young women, at the college’s Guy’s Campus in south London.

But days after appearing on the Moral Maze, the Radio 4 series hosted by Michael Buerk, she