Frances Widdowson is chalking up the wins against her university antagonists. She has been battling with Mount Royal University and the University of Lethbridge for high stakes, with the latter over free speech and with the former over her career.

In 2021 the cantankerous Dr. Widdowson was fired from her tenured professorship at Mount Royal. The good doctor is not a lady to take this lying down. She challenged the dismissal and the Mount Royal Faculty Association took the case to arbitration.

The school had no quarrel with her scholarship or teaching, indeed her credentials are solid, but the school apparently found that a quarrel with her colleagues went beyond the pale.

Or so they say. Widdowson holds controversial views on Reconciliation and Mount Royal is big on Reconciliation. She argues, for instance, that the concept of a “nation-to-nation” relationship between First Nations and Canada is ill-founded and harmful to Indigenous communities. She claims the residential schools were not genocidal and offered students academic benefit.

She also points out that the claim of 215 children being buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School is not supported by forensic evidence (which is true). All of this is not well received at a school that states on its website “Our goal is to indigenize Mount Royal University.”

Not content with offending sensibilities at one university, Widdowson then went on to excite tempers at the U of Lethbridge. Invited by a faculty member to make a presentation, the university cancelled her scheduled appearance, citing safety concerns. When she showed up to make an unscheduled talk anyway, she was escorted off campus. Her intended presentation was entitled “How ‘Wokeism’ Threatens Academic Freedom.”

The defrocked professor didn’t take this rejection lying down either. Widdowson and a student who planned to attend her lecture sued the university, arguing its decision breached sections 2(b) and (c) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Widdowson has her detractors. At Mount Royal, over 6,000 staff and students had signed a petition calling for her firing. Petitions with more than 4,000 signatures opposed her U of Lethbridge talk, calling her a “residential school denialist.”

Widdowson has now whipped both universities. The arbitrator in the Mount Royal case almost fully vindicated her, stating ”She has controversial views on a number of topics. However, 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.” He said there was just cause for discipline but not dismissal.

This month, a Court of King’s Bench judge ruled that the University of Lethbridge’s decision was “fundamentally and fatally flawed” because of its failure to consider a Charter-protected right.

Widdowson says she’s ready to deliver her lecture “tomorrow.” And she couldn’t resist lecturing the university a little, saying, “All they have to do is give the right messaging to the students and faculty that it’s important to discuss all ideas. If you don’t like someone’s ideas, you should provide better arguments.” Hard to argue with that.

The lady’s views on Reconciliation and “wokeism” are not mine, but I’ve been on her side during this feuding. Policies, even Reconciliation, are not the word of God and even if they are presented as such, they are open to criticism. Doctor Widdowson’s critiques are those of an intelligent, educated woman and merit a hearing.

These two universities, of all places, should respect that. They behaved badly. They have now been disciplined.