The ARBITRATION DECISION is available here. A video about the most important aspects of the decision is available below
When Arbitrator Jones sent his decision to MRU and the MRFA on July 2, 2024 – it was not posted on Canlii and made public until a month later – Jennifer Pettit, MRU’s Dean of Arts, sent out emails to Widdowson’s department (Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies) and the people who had been found to have engaged in harassing her. Pettit wrote to inform people that “The arbitrator determined that Dr. Widdowson’s continued employment relationship with MRU is not viable” and that he found that “the University did not violate [Widdowson’s] academic freedom”. Pettit also expressed concerns about the fact that the harassers would be named in the arbitration decision and that “this may have an impact on you”.
It turns out that Dean Pettit’s communication to Widdowson’s department was disinformation. She left out the most important piece of information – that the arbitrator had decided that Widdowson should NOT have been terminated. It was also erroneous for her to claim that the arbitrator found that “the University did not violate [Widdowson’s] academic freedom”. In spite of this disinformation, the MRFA refused to make a public statement correcting the record. It then told Widdowson that she shouldn’t comment on the case in spite of the fact that MRU should never have made such a misleading and false statement.
The Arbitration Decision examined 10 grievances – eight procedural and two substantive. The eight procedural grievances were dismissed, but the two substantive ones concerned Widdowson’s two week suspension without pay and her termination. In the end, MRU’s case for disciplining Widdowson amounted to nine satirical Tweets and a complaint that was deemed to be frivolous and vexatious and not made in good faith. Arbitrator Jones ruled that, while there was just cause to impose some discipline, Widdowson was disciplined excessively. Therefore, she should not have been fired. He also stated that a number of factors that had been used to decide to terminate Widdowson were “inaccurate, or have not been proved in the arbitration hearing, or are not worthy to be considered in a university that values academic freedom” (pp. 288-289). This directly contradicts Dean Pettit’s statement that the arbitrator found that MRU “did not violate [Widdowson’s] academic freedom”.
TWO WEEK SUSPENSION DECISION (Grievance #4 – Suspension reduced to a letter of reprimand): Widdowson was suspended for two weeks without pay because of three satirical Tweets that were made on Widdowson’s own time on her personal Twitter account. These Tweets were complained about by D.A. Dirks and Gabrielle Lindstrom and investigated, even though MRU had told faculty member Milena Radzikowska in December 2019 that MRU did not consider personal social media accounts to be covered by their policies. MRU had also “counselled” faculty member Tanya Stogre when she used an official MRU Twitter account – @MRUEducation – to participate in the mobbing of Widdowson. As it did not counsel Stogre about her use of her personal Twitter account for this purpose, this was interpreted by a number of faculty members as meaning that MRU’s policies did not regulate personal social media accounts. (It appears, therefore, that MRU changed its policies specifically to investigate Widdowson). For these three satirical Tweets, Arbitrator Jones decided that Widdowson should have received a letter of reprimand. Arbitrator Jones’ reasoning with respect to the reduction of the suspension to the letter of reprimand can be accessed here.
Dirks complained about several things, but only Widdowson’s one Tweet satirizing a “misgendering fatigue” cartoon Dirks had presented in a pronouns workshop was substantiated. This Tweet was part of a wider thread about Dirks’ facilitation of a workshop about “white supremacy culture” in the faculty association. The third Tweet in the thread was in response to “Dr. Tony” castigating the journalist Jon Kay for referring to Dirks as a “they/them”, after he found out that Dirks had also facilitated pronouns workshops. The one Tweet was found, by Investigator Jennifer Hawkins, to violate three policies and two laws. The circumstances surrounding this Tweet are discussed in Episode 9: Misgendering Fatigue in White Supremacy Culture.
Other aspects of the Dirks complaint are discussed in Episode 2: The “Trans Exclusionary” Arts Faculty Council Motion.
Lindstrom also complained about several things, but only the “tweets mentioning GL” were found to be substantiated by Investigator Nadja Rence. Strangely, Rence (and subsequently MRU) never specifically referenced what constituted “tweets mentioning GL” – in other words, was it “tagging” that was the issue, or could Tweet attachments that circled Lindstrom’s name also be considered to be “mentioning GL”. During the arbitration process, however, MRU maintained that only two Tweets comprised its case against Widdowson with respect to the Lindstrom complaint. The only documentation of this change to MRU’s case, made during Widdowson’s testimony in the arbitration hearing in October 2023, is found on page 70 paragraph 391 of the January 16, 2024 submission of the Mount Royal Faculty Association.
These two Tweets were in response to Lindstrom’s reaction to Widdowson’s quote Tweet of the satirical account Titania McGrath commenting on “expos[ing] *all* the racist elements within our society”. Widdowson’s two November 7 Tweets were argued to be harassing because Lindstrom had made fun of Widdowson and then immediately blocked her, yet Widdowson had rebutted Lindstrom’s claims so that audience members could evaluate them. However, only one of the Tweets – beginning with “SMH!!! Pls don’t block me, @gabbylindstrom…” – was actually made after Widdowson was blocked (otherwise Lindstrom would not have been able to reply with the comment about Widdowson thinking that students had been mobilized against her). Therefore, according to MRU’s logic, only one of these November 7, 2020 Tweets actually constituted “harassment”.
In all of Widdowson’s interactions with Lindstrom, Widdowson was just responding to Lindstrom’s attempts to instigate a mobbing to get Widdowson fired. This was documented in “Episode 12: Did Gabrielle Lindstrom ‘Harass’ Frances Widdowson?” Other episodes relating to Lindstrom’s complaint are:
TERMINATION DECISION (Grievance #9 – voided, although some lesser discipline was warranted): MRU’s case to terminate Widdowson concerned six satirical Tweets that were complained about by Renae Watchman, and a complaint that Widdowson filed against Tim Haney that was deemed to be frivolous and vexatious and made in bad faith. The arbitrator’s reasoning with respect to the Termination can be accessed here.
Watchman complained about many things, but Investigator Geoff Hope substantiated eight Tweets and one Facebook post not directed at Watchman to be harassing and creating a toxic workplace (Hope’s reasoning for why these posts were harassing can be accessed here.) He decided this even though Watchman was retaliating against Widdowson for a harassment complaint made against her (one that was substantiated by Investigator Steve Eichler). On January 16, 2024, MRU decided that its case against Widdowson only comprised six satirical Tweets (the August 27 Facebook post was actually two Tweets).
Widdowson and Hope discussed these Tweets in an investigation meeting on October 27, 2021. The entire discussion of all the Tweets investigated starts at 2:10:23 of the recording below. Tweet 2 is discussed from 2:10:23-2:18:20 (Tweet 1 is not discussed), Tweet 3 is discussed from 2:49:10-2:55:35, Tweet 4 is discussed from 3:14:18-3:19:21, and Tweets 5 and 6 are discussed from 3:31:58-3:54:07. The clips of the recordings of the discussion of the specific Tweets found to be harassing, as well as the transcripts of the recordings of these discussions, can be accessed here.
Geoff Hope’s reasoning, for why these six Tweets were found to be harassing, can be accessed here.
The circumstances surrounding the Watchman complaint are discussed in Episode 1: The Renae Watchman Complaint. Other episodes also pertain to the Watchman complaint. These are
Episode 4: The “Disruptive” Actions at Meetings
Episode 6: The Satirical Letter that was “Demeaning of Others”
Episode 16: The Poisonous Work Environment Endured by Frances Widdowson from 2016-2019
Widdowson’s complaint against Tim Haney is available here. This complaint was found to be frivolous and vexatious and not made in good faith by Investigator Steve Eichler. The portion of the Eichler’s report pertaining to the frivolous and vexatious finding is below, but the redacted investigation report can be accessed here.
Widdowson discussed this complaint in the paragraph below. She elaborated upon this in an article in Minding the Campus.
Widdowson also testified at length about why she filed the complaint at the arbitration hearing. She explained that, because of Elizabeth Evans’ May 13, 2021 disciplinary letter, Widdowson had been directed to “refrain from posting to social media, including Twitter, commentary directed at individuals of the MRU community, including the use of pseudonyms”. This meant that Widdowson had no way of defending herself against the posts made by Tim Haney. As a result, she was forced to file a complaint because this was the only mechanism available to her to respond to these personal attacks.
MRU also added on 12 “factors” for why Widdowson should be terminated. Most of these factors were never put to Widdowson, and so she was not able to respond to them before she was terminated. The blue highlighted numbers (1-4 and 8) were specifically stated by Arbitrator Jones not to have been substantiated, the pink highlighted numbers (5, 6, 9, and 11) were not mentioned by Arbitrator Jones, and the yellow highlighted numbers (7, 10, and 12) were found to be substantiated. The entire termination letter can be accessed here.
MRU summarized the “evidence” that it had provided to support these 12 “factors” on January 16, 2024 in its final submission to Arbitrator Jones. This was over two years after Widdowson was fired. Widdowson, therefore, only knew the “case to meet” against her after the arbitration hearing was over. Such uncertainty was created because Arbitrator Jones refused to order MRU to particularize its case.
Arbitrator Jones, on pp. 288-9 of his decision, stated that almost all of these factors were either “inaccurate”, “not proved…in the arbitration hearing”, or “not worthy of being considered in a university that values academic freedom”. He maintained that only numbers 7, 10 and 12 (the yellow numbers) were found to be the case. Numbers 1-4 and 8 on the list above (the blue numbers) were not proven or inaccurate or “not worthy of being considered in a university that values academic freedom”, and numbers 5, 6, 9, 11 (the pink numbers) were not referred to by the Arbitrator. Widdowson has evidence to refute 5 (a transcript of the meeting with the Provost on December 13, 2021), Widdowson has no way of controlling 6, number 9 is inaccurate, as Investigator Hope did not state this in his report, and number 11 can be refuted from a recording of a grievance meeting with Dean Jennifer Pettit in September 2021.
DECISION NOT TO REINSTATE: In spite of the Arbitrator arguing that Widdowson should not have been terminated, he argued that she could not be reinstated because her employment relationship “would not be viable”. He gave nine reasons for this. The excerpt containing all of Arbitrator Jones’ reasoning with respect to his decision not to reinstate can be accessed here.
In these nine reasons, Arbitrator Jones does not recognize that Widdowson works with only one person who testified at the Arbitration, Duane Bratt, and he was not involved in the “Twitter war”, where 40 colleagues mobbed her (bullet 1). Widdowson continues to deny that her social media communications were “harassing”. As has been shown above, only one of the Tweets was unprovoked, and this was a trivial matter not rising to the level of what is defined as “harassment” in law (bullet 2). Colleagues who are reluctant to see Widdowson return are completely hostile to academic freedom and should not be rewarded for their persecution of Widdowson (bullet 3). Widdowson continues to “persist” in her belief that her Tweets were not harassing, and she has good reason to continue in this belief (bullet 4). Widdowson is “hostile” only to those who are “hostile” to the academic mission of the university (bullet 5). Bullet 6 is made up and didn’t happen. Does bullet 7 mean that the Arbitrator is arguing that a “civility” clause exists in the Collective Agreement. The “friction” evident in the Lindstrom and Watchman complaints was due to their complete hostility to academic freedom (bullet 8). Widdowson continues to have “implacable views and attitudes” because she believes that she is right in her attempts to defend herself and the academic mission of the university (bullet 9).
THE APPEAL: Widdowson’s case is being appealed to the labour board. The appeal concerns the 9 reasons that Arbitrator Jones gave for why Widdowson could not be reinstated.
Widdowson continues to remain concerned that two aspects of the arbitration decision are not being appealed at this time – the procedural grievances and the findings of harassment. Not appealing the procedures will mean that faculty members will be subject to unjust actions such as having to go through investigations without receiving complaints (as occurred to Widdowson with respect to the Dirks and Lindstrom complaints, which Widdowson only received in complete form during the arbitration, after she had been fired). Widdowson is also adamant that she NEVER harassed anyone. She has done an in depth analysis of both the deficiencies of the findings of harassment and the procedural deficiencies, unfairness, and arbitrariness she experienced, which can be accessed here.