Episode 5: “Anti-Racism” and Defending Wendy Mesley
Two of the examples given for why Dr. Widdowson was fired concerned social media comments that she had made. Widdowson was told that “Students have raised numerous complaints and concerns” (#1), and there were an “abundance of complaints from external parties with respect to your inappropriate conduct on social media” (#2). It is possible that a number of these “complaints and concerns” were due to Widdowson’s defense of the CBC journalist Wendy Mesley.
In June 2020, the CBC Journalist Wendy Mesley was suspended from her job for mentioning the word “nigger” twice – in a private editorial meeting in an anti-racist context and referring to the book title “White Niggers of America”.
On June 29, 2020, Frances Widdowson defended Wendy Mesley, and asserted that referring to a book title was very different than using a racial slur.
On July 2, 2020, “Ben V.” (@MxSpoike) replied to Widdowson’s tweet with the question “If the word [nigger] is so benign, why do you refuse to say it?”. This resulted in Widdowson mentioning the word in a quote and referring to the book title as a direct response to “Ben V.”‘s question. Widdowson attached two documents to her tweet – the Wikipedia article from which her quotation was drawn and the cover of the book White Niggers of America. Widdowson’s reply also tagged @CBC and @WendyMesleyCBC.
At the time, Widdowson sensed that she was being set up by “Ben V.” (@MxSpoike) because “they” had previously responded to MRU President Tim Rahilly’s post that “MRU condemns systemic racism” with unsubstantiated allegations about Widdowson’s “anti-indigenous” and “anti-trans” rhetoric.
In this reply, “Ben V.” implied that as long as MRU had “people like [Frances Widdowson] representing MRU” President Rahilly couldn’t really say that MRU condemned racism. “Ben V.” asserted that this was because Widdowson “use[d] MRU resources to spread hate speech” and made “them” and others “feel less welcome because of her continued employment.”
However, since Widdowson believed that Wendy Mesley had done nothing wrong, and her reply to “Ben V.” (@MxSpoike) tagged @CBC and Wendy Mesley, she believed that this was a way to show solidarity with the journalist.
One month later, on July 30, 2020, MRU indigenous studies scholar Dr. Gabrielle Lindstrom tweeted racialadvmru’s instagram treatment of Widdowson’s reply intended to show solidarity with Wendy Mesley (severed from “Ben V.”‘s question) with the claim that Widdowson was “hid[ing] behind academia to spread racist views!”
The next day, on July 31, 2020, “MRU Racial Advocacy” (@RacialAdvMRU), an anonymous Twitter account claiming to be “student-led”, replied to Lindstrom’s tweet stating that Widdowson’s post was “violent” and questioned whether she could “teach and grade without racial bias”. Lindstrom stated that MRU Racial Advocacy’s question needed to be “seriously considered” and asked “what will it take for the university to stop in their complicity?” She then encouraged MRU alumnus Grace Dafoe to complain to President Rahilly about Widdowson’s post.
On October 20, 2020, it was announced that Dr. Lindstrom had been appointed to a position at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary as an “Educational Development Consultant (Indigenous Ways of Knowing), starting January 1, 2021”.
Applications were accepted for the position of Educational Development Consultant (Indigenous Ways of Knowing) until April 30, 2020.
A harassment complaint was filed against Widdowson on October 22, 2020. Part of this complaint concerned responses to Tweets that were encouraging MRU Racial Advocacy and an alumnus to go to “The office of the President” about Widdowson’s defense of Wendy Mesley.
