This post is the second in a two part series. The first, which discussed how Widdowson’s one Tweet satirizing faculty member D.A. Dirks’ cartoon about “misgendering fatigue” – being so exhausted from being “misgendered” that one had to lie on the ground – was found to have violated three policies and two laws.
https://wokeacademy.info/the-franceswiddowsoncase-and-misgendering-fatigue/
This second post is about how trans activism impacted the failure to reinstate Widdowson. Although Arbitrator David Phillip Jones found that Widdowson had been wrongfully terminated from Mount Royal University, he maintained that she could not be reinstated because, among other things, there was a “reluctance of a number of witnesses who were co-workers to see her return to the workplace” and “friction between her and other colleagues…”.
One colleague who has expressed a “reluctance” to “see her [Widdowson] return to the workplace” during the arbitration was Mary-Lee Mulholland. One of the reasons for this was because Mulholland claimed that Widdowson had said, among other things, that “trans people did not exist”. When Mulholland was cross-examined, she admitted that Widdowson had not said this, but had asserted that there were only two sexes, male and female.
And this was not the only false claim that Mulholland made. In fact, the lawyers for the Mount Royal Faculty Association found that the allegations of Mulholland’s had been “universally refuted” (Widdowson tried to make a post showing the evidence of this, but was forced, by the union, to take the relevant submission down).
Things went from bad to worse in the union in September 20, 2024. This was when the union held a meeting to discuss Widdowson’s case, and why her lack of reinstatement was being appealed to the Alberta Labour Relations Board. Widdowson was not allowed to attend and was escorted out of the meeting when she showed up to participate. At this meeting, two faculty members – the aforementioned Professor Mulholland and Scott Murray, the Chair of the Humanities department and the spouse of D.A. Dirks – put forward a case that the union should not be defending Widdowson and that she should not be reinstated because of the “harm” that she had caused. Although Widdowson was not allowed to attend, a faculty member has provided her with the notes that were taken by one observer.
Mulholland and Murray’s reference to the “Gang of 17” failed to understand that this was a phrase that had been coined by the MRU lawyer, Michael Ford, in the arbitration process. Therefore, Murray falsely attributed the invention of this phrase to Widdowson.
Murray, the Chair of MRU’s Humanities department and the spouse of D.A. Dirks, had been trying to delegitimize Widdowson’s attempts to discuss contentious issues for a number of years. In May 15, 2021, Murray made the following comments at an event held at a Mount Royal Faculty Association event. The event was held on Zoom and members were not able to challenge these views in front of the other members. The event was organized so that they were only able put comments in the chat.
Widdowson replied to Murray’s allegations at the MRFA Retreat in 2022. Widdowson was not allowed to attend this event, and had to have her colleagues present this video instead. In this video, Widdowson explained what “hate speech” was at 4:08.
Another person prevented from attending the September 20, 2024 meeting was Kelly Sundberg, the Senior Grievance Officer. This was in part because Sundberg had said that Widdowson had been “ganged up” on by a number of faculty members. This was complained about by another board member, Milena Radzikowska.
A few days after this meeting, on September 25, 2024, the MRFA Executive Board sent out an email to all members regretting that the arguments put forward to defend Widdowson had “caused them harm”.
On February 7, 2025, the MRFA President sent out another email, presumably because some faculty members had seen the submission that the MRFA had asked Widdowson to remove in December 2024, which showed that the MRFA had used the phrase the “Gang of 17” in its defense of Widdowson.
Although Widdowson did not intiate the term “Gang of 17”, it was false and highly prejudicial to Widdowson’s case for the union president Brenda Lang to state that term was inaccurate. What occurred was that Widdowson was subjected to an academic mobbing on Twitter that was supported by about 40 MRU faculty members. With respect to the “Gang of 17”, Widdowson documented this in the 17 complaints that she filed in February and March 2021.
Although Mulholland and Murray were not complained about, they had engaged in amplifying comments that were made by others that delegitimized Widdowson’s position at MRU.
These circumstances reflect that Widdowson’s union has been captured by a faction of faculty members. This is due, in part, to the fact that powerful faculty members like Mary-Lee Mulholland, Scott Murray, and Milena Radzikowska are deeply invested in trans activism. As a result, the union does not represent the critics of trans activism fairly and professors are fearful to take on an area that is having terrible consequences for society.
