An arbitrator has ruled that Calgary’s Mount Royal University (MRU) acted in a “disproportionate” manner in late 2021 in its firing of Frances Widdowson, a tenured political scientist with a speciality in Indigenous issues.
Dr. Widdowson, an outspoken critic of the politically charged but theoretically simplistic notions of the academic culture wars at MRU was dismissed just before Christmas 2021 during what arbitrator D.P. Jones called a “Twitter War” between her and a few activist colleagues opposed to her views.
The hearing took 30 days, over ten months, as 25 witnesses gave evidence. Its main findings were on the appropriateness and fairness of the procedures used to dismiss her, not on the reasons given for her dismissal.
The latter concerned September 2020 comments from Widdowson that far from constituting genocide, aboriginal children gained educational benefits by attending Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, an outrageously scandalous opinion among some at MRU.
Her position on Indigenous issues would certainly have been considered heretical at MRU where extreme pro-indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-white privilege perspectives have long ruled.
Following her dismissal, Widdowson filed ten grievances, eight on procedural grounds and two on substantive ones. In his nearly 300-page decision, Jones threw out the grievances involving the improper procedures employed by the university in its dealings with Widdowson.
On discipline, Jones found that while Widdowson’s behaviour was “just cause” for discipline, her firing was “disproportionate” to that behaviour.
On one of Widdowson’s substantive grievances, Jones ruled that her two-week suspension was disproportionate, ruling that a letter of reprimand be substituted for the suspension.
When it came to Widdowson’s firing, Jones wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson’s conduct, but that dismissal was an inappropriate penalty.
However, Jones said that Widdowson’s continued employment with the university would not be viable for several reasons, including Widdowson’s ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her “persistence” throughout the arbitration hearing that several tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.
Instead, the arbitrator suggested, “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.”
In an interview with CBC News on Friday, October 4, Widdowson said she’s pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling that she was wrongfully terminated but that she continues to be upset about how the arbitration approached the issue of harassment.
“People continue to think that I engaged in harassment, which I did not. I’ve done extensive analysis of the different findings which were put forward by the different investigators,” she said.
“There were four different investigators hired by MRU, and these investigators all had different, contradictory findings. What we need from the decision is for there to be a neutral person who makes findings of facts about this.”
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated,” she said during a phone interview with a national media outlet.
“The people who don’t want me to return to MRU, I don’t work with those people,” she replied.
She doesn’t “work with those people” because she shares nothing with them intellectually.
The irony is that Widdowson is an old-school leftist, a classical Marxist whose views on inequality focus on inter-class conflict having little to do with racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity, the preoccupation of contemporary identity politics, also known as wokeism.
Traditional Marxists and disciples of wokeism are both on the left, often the hard left. But they support incompatible paradigms about the causes and consequences of social and economic inequality, hence their mutual loathing.
Widdowson said she is appealing the decision to regain her tenured faculty position. It seems likely, however, that she’ll end up accepting a huge payout instead.
In his ruling, Jones found that although Widdowson has “controversial views on a number of topics … there has never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship; she has never received performance management counselling for either her teaching or scholarship; and the University has supported and recognized her scholarly activities.”
Mount Royal officials said, “While the formal process continues, we will have no further comment.”
Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
