Frances Widdowson first became aware of Benjamin Kucher when she was asked to give a presentation on “Academic Freedom Under Threat” at the University of Alberta. Kucher was the president of the Indigenous Graduate Students Association at the University of Alberta and felt “anger, frustration, and disappointment in the university for allowing [her]” to speak on campus.
Perhaps as a result of the Indigenous Graduate Students Association’s denunciation of Widdowson, her talk was disrupted by a number of students.
Although Kucher’s supervisor is not known for certain, it is likely that Kisha Supernant has influence over his academic development. Kisha Supernant is one of the major activist archaeologists who has been castigating academics for “residential school denialism”.
Kucher also has connections to Supernant through the Canadian Archaeological Association.
On August 16, 2025, Benjamin Kucher put out a 12 point thread asserting that “residential school denialism is violence”.
This thread was was supported by Sean Carleton.
This led Widdowson to argue that Kucher’s post constituted what James Lindsay has called “The Iron Law of Woke Projection”, where totalitarian identity politics practitioners accuse people of doing something that they engage in. People like Kucher and Carleton accuse people of denying evidence and not seeking the truth, when it is they that are actually doing this. For example, the reason why “This post is unavailable” is because Kucher blocked Widdowson just for asking these questions.
Perhaps in response to Widdowson’s post, even though he had blocked her, Kucher put out an eight-point thread asserting that he had encountered “denialist attacks” that reinforced his position.
This was supported by Niigaan Sinclair who referred to Kucher’s posts as an “amazing thread”.
This led Frances Widdowson to provide commentary on her own account (because of Kucher’s block).
On August 23, 2025, Frances Widdowson made a post about Nina Green’s piece concerning the Kuper Island Residential School. Andrew Martindale, an archaeologist from the University of British Columbia, has made claims about “342 unmarked graves” being found there. Green’s argument is that the report needs to be released to the public so that its methodology can be analyzed. Widdowson argues that his should occur because UBC is a publicly funded institution.
Perhaps because of this, Kucher posted a 10-point thread. He argued that aboriginal groups should not have to release their reports because demanding this constitutes a denial of “indigenous sovereignty”. Once again, Frances Widdowson provided commentary on her own account. She argued that the release of these reports is needed to pursue the truth, as only public verification can ensure that evidence exists to make claims about the existence of “unmarked graves”.
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