Episode 16: The Poisonous Work Environment Endured by Frances Widdowson from 2016-2019
In 2008, according to the “Report of the Policy Studies Selection Committee, Spring, 2008”, one of the reasons why Dr. Frances Widdowson was hired was because of her “Relevant Scholarly Activity – publications, research agenda, interdisciplinary activities”. Attached to the Report was Widdowson’s Curriculum Vitae, which prominently displayed her dissertation “The Political Economy of Aboriginal Dependency in Canada: A Critique of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples” (2006) and her co-authored book Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation (2008). Both of these works were critical of Canadian indigenous policy.
On October 31, 2008, a representative from the Students’ Association of Mount Royal University sent an email to Robin Fisher, the Provost of MRU, expressing their “displeasure” at Widdowson for expressing her views.
Robin Fisher, the Provost of MRU, responded appropriately to this email. He stated that MRU protected the academic freedom rights of faculty, and encouraged the representative “to contact Dr. Widdowson directly to share your views on this particular subject”. The Provost then copied Dr. Widdowson on his reply, which the representative should have done when he was discussing Dr. Widdowson.
On December 3, 2008, Frances Widdowson was informed by a colleague that after a public forum was held on Widdowson’s co-authored book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, one professor at MRU had sent her students to the event to accost Widdowson about “Voice Appropriation of Indigenous Issues”.
In 2009, a contract faculty member, Marco Navarro-Genie, assigned the book that Frances Widdowson co-authored with Albert Howard, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, for a book review project in one of his classes. When a student complained, Navarro-Genie was summoned to the office of the Chair of Policy Studies to justify his actions. The video below explains what transpired.
In June 2015, a draft of the “Mount Royal University Aboriginal Strategic Plan 2015-2020” was produced. On pages 10 and 11 of the draft plan there were two pages of items considered to be “Enablers (need to have to succeed)” and “Barriers (need to overcome to succeed)”. One of these barriers to indigenization was “Strong/active individual opposition by MRU community members”.
In August 2015, Frances Widdowson attended consultations about the proposed process of indigenization at Mount Royal University (MRU). On September 2, 2015, she made a submission analyzing the draft plan.
Widdowson suggested at the consultations that forums with different perspectives on indigenization should be organized so that its implications could be understood. Those facilitating the consultatoins agreed with her at the time. When the sessions were organized for the Winter of 2016, however, all the events only showcased perspectives that were supportive of indigenization. The final event on April 8, 2016 was a panel of four people, and all – Marie Wilson, Chelsea Vowel, Erica Lee, and Sean Carleton – were indigenization advocates.
A month before the Roundtable was to occur, Haggarty told Widdowson that he knew another participant who wanted to participate who would be especially suited for the roundtable. This was Rob Innes, an indigenous studies professor from the University of Saskatchewan. Because Widdowson had intended for the roundtable to be balanced, and did not want five people on the panel, she asked Haggarty if he would like to be the moderator. Widdowson was not entirely happy with Haggarty being the moderator as she realized that he was not a disinterested participant. However, she wanted him to continue to be involved and thought that, as someone who would be able to act professionally, the event could be moderated in an unbiased fashion.
Shortly before the date of the Roundtable, Jeff Muehlbauer informed Widdowson that he would not be able to participate. This led Widdowson to ask Albert Howard to take his place. Widdowson did not think that this was ideal because she had very similar views to Howard, but she wanted to keep the Roundtable balanced with two people supporting indigenization and two people being critical of it.
Frances Widdowson gave her presentation last, after Rob Innes, and her presentation is available below. During her time to sum up what other presenters had said, Widdowson wanted to explain why she was opposed to official territorial land acknowledgements. Widdowson told the audience that she wanted to tell them something that she thought was true, but she was afraid to do this because she though that it would make them upset. A member in the audience yelled at her: “Don’t say it then!”
The next day, Widdowson discovered that Haggarty had not been acting in good faith as the moderator. Instead, he had been on his smart phone with Rob Innes live-Tweeting about the Roundtable when it was in progress. Widdowson had seen Haggarty on his phone, but she had assumed that he had been answering his emails; she did not know that he was encouraging opposition to the presentations by Albert Howard and her. Haggarty posted on Twitter, while he was moderating the event, that Howard’s presentation was “Without a doubt the most violent, racist presentation I’ve ever witnessed”. This was retweeted by a number of people, including Ian Mosby – now a professor at Ryerson University – who made the following comment: “Albert Howard and Frances Widdowson doing what they do at #CongressSSH2016”. Haggarty also seemed to disparage Widdowson’s presentation by stating “Here comes round 2 with Frances Widdowson…”
Also involved in the live-Tweeting was Renae Watchman, a professor of English and indigenous studies at MRU. Although Watchman was not at the event, she replied to Haggarty in an exchange of Tweets and asserted that “Widdowson’s perspective (singular) is problematic, hateful, ignorant, & (generous of the hosts).”
This discovery led Widdowson to email Haggarty and Watchman demanding evidence for their defamatory allegations.
In addition to the Tweets, Widdowson also found a facebook post by Rob Innes on the internet. The post was Innes’ account of the Roundtable.
Innes’ Facebook post was reacted to by over 90 people and contained 27 replies. These included highly critical comments about Widdowson and Howard from both Liam Haggarty and Keith Carlson, who were supposed to be participating collegially as academics in the Roundtable. None of what they were discussing was mentioned during the event itself; engaging in this kind of discussion without Albert Howard and Frances Widdowson being present seemed to indicate a lack of concern for giving the academics the opportunity to defend themselves.
When Haggarty and Watchman did not respond to Widdowson’s demands for evidence, she sent an email to the Dean of Arts on June 6, 2016.
The Dean of Arts and Widdowson then entered into a lengthy exchange.
Widdowson then sent an email to the Provost and the administrator in charge of Indigenization on September 7, 2016.
Frances Widdowson, who was a General Faculties Councillor at the time, raised some concerns about the Indigenous Strategic Plan.
Although the Dean expressed a reluctance to intervene in the Widdowson-Haggarty-Watchman dispute, he obtained funds for another Roundtable so that it could occur as was originally intended. This took place in February 10 2017, and included Massimo Pigliucci, Root Gorelick, David Newhouse, Shawn England, Frances Widdowson, and Gerry Cross. Widdowson also had invited Blair Stonechild, Kim Tallbear, and Jeff Baker to participate but they either did not respond or declined.
Liam Haggarty posted more uncollegial comments on Twitter about Widdowson a few months later. This led Widdowson to send an email to the Provost and the Dean of Arts on June 6, 2017.
On September 1, 2017, Widdowson contacted Provost Lesley Brown about the latest attacks being made against her on Twitter by both Haggarty and Watchman.
In January 2018, it was announced that Renae Watchman and Liam Haggarty had been appointed to the position of Co-Directors of Academic Indigenization.
This led Widdowson to send the professor an email, cc’d to a number of administrators, to let him know that this was not welcome. The professor responded to Widdowson and all the administrators, and continued to call her a racist.
On October 14, 2018, David Docherty, the President of Mount Royal University, met with a group of students from the Vice-President, Academic Advisory Committee of the Students’ Association (SAMRU). In the meeting, Docherty appeared to be agreeing with three student politicians that there was too much debate at General Faculties Council and he stated that “we spent far too much time debating whether the earth was flat or round last year”.
On January 3, 2019, a faculty member in Frances Widdowson’s department told her that he was participating “on another social media platform” that was discussing the event Widdowson was organizing on behalf of the Rational Space Network “Does Trans Activism Negatively Impact Women’s Rights?”. On this platform, unknown to Widdowson, there “is heightened apprehension of MRU trans students and their allies (some in our own degree program) over what they see as an academic smokescreen to, in effect, marginalise them further”.
In May 2019, Renae Watchman was awarded a distinguished faculty award from MRU “for her unapologetic voice for social justice in the MRU community and around the world”.
The same day, Widdowson also sent a more detailed message to the Dean of Arts about how her workplace was becoming poisoned.
