In Tim Rahilly’s termination letter, two of the “examples” given for why Widdowson was fired were that she “continually and intentionally attempt[ed] to disrupt business at meetings” (#3) and that her “conduct at a meeting in the spring of 2021 was so disruptive that it was a significant contributing factor to the development of new procedures…” (#4).
On November 26, 2020, Frances Widdowson attended a talk being presented by Dr. Ranjan Datta, a Canada Research Chair in indigenous studies. Widdowson put two quotations from Dr. Ranjan Datta’s slides in the Chat and then asked a question and a follow-up.
At the Arts Faculty Council on March 5, 2021, Widdowson asked two questions. These questions, as well as the answers to them, are transcribed below.
An investigator hired to examine allegations about the Arts Faculty Council meeting did NOT find “that Dr. Widdowson’s approach, comments or behaviour were in any way harassing or inappropriate…”. Instead, the investigator asserted that it was Widdowson who had seemed to endure “some unduly disrespectful and dismissive behaviour by others” in this meeting.
On December 10, 2021, Frances Widdowson asked a question to Gabrielle Lindstrom during her Canada Research Chair interview.
On December 20, 2021, Widdowson asked a question during Robert Caldwell’s Canada Research Chair presentation.
On March 16, 2022 (three months after she had been fired), Frances Widdowson attended the MRU event “Queering Indigenous Land-based Education” and asked the question “How is epistemcide related to the severing of land-based learning?”. Gabrielle Lindstrom responded by stating that asking such a question was related to a “universal way of validating knowledge”, which was “steeped in cultural arrogance and cultural narcissism”.
