Alberta Grievance Arbitration Awards arbitrator David Phillip Jones said former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson’s termination was disproportionate to her conduct, despite her behaviour warranting some discipline. However, Jones said Widdowson would not be reinstated because Section 142(2) of the Labour Relations Code permits an arbitrator to fashion a remedy that is just and reasonable. “While in this circumstance, an arbitrator would frequently impose a lesser penalty and reinstate the person to their employment, that is not the automatic result,” said Jones in a ruling. Widdowson said in 2022 she would be pursuing legal action to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression in universities after she was fired for questioning woke ideas..MRU professor fights back after being fired for questioning ‘woke’ ideas.She was fired in 2021 for criticizing subjects such as truth and reconciliation with indigenous people, Black Lives Matter, and trans rights. While her case pertained to academic freedom and freedom of expression, she said she believed wokeism will have massive implications for universities and lead to the deterioration of their intellectual character. This arbitration involved 10 grievances the parties agreed were to be determined together, with evidence received with respect to one grievance being able to be used for all of them. Eight of the grievances relate to the process used to investigate the complaints, and two related to the suspension and dismissal imposed on Widdowson. The hearing took 30 days to hear from 25 witnesses spread over 10 months and involved thousands of pages of exhibits and written submissions and replies.Widdowson had been hired as an economics, justice, and policy studies professor at MRU in 2008 and received tenure soon after. MRU Faculty of Arts Dean Jennifer Pettit confirmed she never had any issues with her about her professorship or scholarly activities and recognized her as a productive scholar. In a series of events from 2016 to 2019, Widdowson alerted MRU officials she was being mocked on Twitter by other professors, but she did not want the matters to be dealt with in a disciplinary manner. She said she understood its position was online conduct of its employees on their own accounts was none of its business. Starting in 2020, there was a Twitter war between she and a few other professors. Two of the professors made harassment complaints against her. MRU hired investigators to look into the matter, and they determined her tweets constituted harassment. As a result, she received a two-weeks suspension. In 2021, she made a complaint against a professor for his tweets, which an investigator found was not harassment. A few months later, she was terminated from her position because MRU objected to past behaviour. Jones found the eight procedural grievances did not have merit to them, but the two about the disciplinary process did. However, he found the suspension was disproportionate and ruled a letter of reprimand be substituted in its place. MRU submitted it had just cause to terminate her. He said all three grounds referred to in her termination letter justified discipline. Although Widdowson had been mistreated, Jones said her continued employment relationship with MRU would be unviable for a few reasons. Some of these reasons were the adverse effect of her participation in the Twitter war on her relationships with certain colleagues, her refusal to recognize the impact her communications had and her lack of remorse for them, and the reluctance of witnesses to see her return to it. “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties,” he said. “In the meantime, I reserve jurisdiction with respect to remedy.”Widdowson said in an interview with the Western Standard she was happy she won her case, but she thinks she should not have been disciplined at all. “And that’s my biggest issue with the decision,” she said. “It still is standing that I harassed people.” Since she was not reinstated, she said she was disappointed with that. She confirmed the case was being appealed because of problems with the decision. The University of Lethbridge was sued in 2023 for its decision to cancel an event with Widdowson. .University of Lethbridge sued over cancelling Widdowson speaking event.The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced a court action was filed against U of L on behalf of she, former professor Paul Viminitz, and student Jonah Pickle.She, Viminitz, and Pickle challenged U of L’s decision to cancel her talk about wokeism threatening academic freedom as violating their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
