In Widdowson’s termination letter, three “reasons” were given for why she would be “immediately dismissed from [her] position…for just, sufficient, and reasonable cause”. These pertained to Investigator Geoff Hope’s findings about the Renae Watchman complaint (which were argued in MRU’s January 16, 2024 final submission to be the satirical Tweets in Counts 4-9 documented below), and a complaint that Widdowson filed about Tim Haney that was found to be frivolous and vexatious and not made in good faith (which Widdowson has contested here).
Widdowson was also provided with twelve “examples” as to why her “relationship with Mount Royal University has become irreparably damaged and a continued employment relationship is non-viable”. According to Arbitrator David Phillip Jones, only three of these “examples” were substantiated at the arbitration hearing (#7, #10, and #12).
As Arbitrator Jones failed to make MRU particularize its case, it was not clear how Widdowson (in example #7) “contributed significantly to a harassing and toxic workplace environment” (Widdowson does not contest examples #10 and #12, because she argues that it would be immoral to “take responsibility” for rules that were specifically changed to push her out of MRU and she should have “no remorse” for just defending herself from threats to her academic freedom that MRU had condoned since 2016).
On October 26, 2023 (during Widdowson’s testimony about the Tweets concerning Gabrielle Lindstrom) and January 16, 2024 (in MRU’s Final Submissions), MRU finally clarified that there are actually 9 Counts against Widdowson with respect to example #7. The third Count, however, is obviously erroneous. This was because, according to MRU’s logic, the harassment finding was about Lindstrom having “blocked” Widdowson on Twitter. MRU assumed that Widdowson made two Tweets after she was blocked on Twitter by Gabrielle Lindstrom on November 7, 2020, but this was because Nadja Rence mixed up the order of two of Widdowson’s Tweets and the “First November 7, 2020 Tweet” was actually the “Second November 7, 2020 Tweet” that Widdowson had made. Widdowson, therefore, only made one Tweet (what Rence calls the “First November 7, 2020 Tweet) after she had been blocked by Lindstrom.
The 9 “Counts” that make up the “harassing and toxic workplace” case as to why Widdowson’s relationship with MRU was “irreparably damaged” are listed below:
Count 1: One Tweet satirizing “misgendering fatigue” and LGBTQ initialism (Dirks complaint/Hawkins investigation).
Count 2: The “first November 7 2020 Tweet”. This was actually Widdowson’s SECOND satirical reply to Gabrielle Lindstrom’s second reply to Widdowson. Lindstrom was making fun of Widdowson for allegedly saying that Lindstrom had mobilized students against her (Widdowson was actually claiming that an “anon acct” had mobilized students against her). When Widdowson tried reply a SECOND time to Lindstrom, she discovered that Lindstrom had blocked her. This led Widdowson to satirize Lindstrom’s blocking of her and to show that Lindstrom had, in fact, mobilized students against Widdowson. Investigator Nadja Rence argued that since Lindstrom had blocked Widdowson on Twitter, Widdowson should not have responded to Lindstrom because Lindstrom was telling Widdowson, through blocking, that Widdowson’s communication was unwelcome (Lindstrom complaint/Rence investigation). Lindstrom has since deleted her second post, but Widdowson took a screen capture of it and this can be viewed on the PDF below.
Count 3 (*this is erroneous due to an error by Investigator Nadja Rence*) : The “second November 7 2020 Tweet”. This was actually Widdowson’s FIRST satirical reply to Gabrielle Lindstrom in response to to Lindstrom going onto Widdowson’s Twitter account to try to get Widdowson disciplined for retweeting a post by “Titania McGrath” – a satirical account by Andrew Doyle – saying that all sorts of things were racist (golf, bedrooms, Jesus, chess, etc.) and the @MRUAntiRacism should apply this list to MRU. In this reply to Lindstrom’s demand that Widdowson be disciplined for the retweet with the satirical comment, Widdowson satirically asserted that Widdowson should be fired for harassing an “anon acct that mobilized students against her” (i.e. @MRUAntiRacism). Investigator Nadja Rence claimed that Lindstrom had blocked Widdowson at this stage (Lindstrom complaint/Rence investigation). This had not yet happened, however, as Widdowson was able to see Lindstrom’s first reply. Lindstrom has since deleted her first post, but Widdowson took a screen capture of it and this can be viewed on the PDF below.
Count 4: An August 24, 2020 Satirical Tweet congratulating @MRUAntiRacism for saying that Canada was a genocidal country. Widdowson’s satirical character, francXs mcgrath asserted that Canada was even more of a genocidal country than Nazi Germany (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
Count 5: An August 27, 2020 Satirical Tweet stating that Widdowson had engaged in “epistemic terror” against @MRUAntiRacism and @RacialAdvMRU (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
Count 6: A January 26, 2021 Satirical Tweet congratulating @MRUAntiRacism for endorsing indigenous knowledge that was not evidence-based (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
Count 7: A January 12, 2021 Satirical Tweet congratulating @MRUAntiRacism for accusing John A. Macdonald of genocide (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
Count 8: An October 18, 2021 Satirical Tweet congratulating “Renae, Michael, and Leah of @MRUAntiRacism” for mobbing “Evil” professor Frances Widdowson (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
Count 9: An October 23, 2021 Satirical Tweet encouraging @mountroyal4u to regulate satirical Tweets as a workplace issue, and satirically questioning whether @gabbylindstrom and @haneysociology were acting in good faith (Watchman complaint/Hope investigation).
A PDF of these nine “counts” is available here.