Mount Royal University’s decision to fire a controversial tenured professor in 2021 was disproportionate, even if her conduct did warrant discipline, an arbitrator has ruled.
The decision, which runs more than 300 pages, was delivered in July. It concerns 10 grievances filed by the professor, Frances Widdowson, and the Mount Royal Faculty Association, tied to Widdowson’s dismissal on Dec. 20, 2021.
The hearing’s main focus was not on comments from Widdowson that made headlines in 2020, when she suggested there were educational benefits to Canada’s residential school system and complained the Black Lives Matter movement had “destroyed” MRU — though she now says the statement about BLM was intended to be hyperbolic.
The only controversy here was the insane reaction of the university and her colleagues.
