Education
Fired Alberta Professor Largely Vindicated
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated”
An arbitrator has ruled that Calgary’s Mount Royal University (MRU) acted in a “disproportionate” manner in late 2021 in its firing of Frances Widdowson, a tenured political scientist with a specialty in Indigenous issues.
Dr. Widdowson, an outspoken critic of the politically charged but theoretically simplistic notions of the academic culture wars at MRU was dismissed just before Christmas 2021 during what arbitrator D.P. Jones called a “Twitter War” between her and a few activist colleagues opposed to her views.
The hearing took 30 days, over ten months, as 25 witnesses gave evidence. Its main findings were on the appropriateness and fairness of the procedures used to dismiss her, not on the reasons given for her dismissal.
The latter concerned September 2020 comments from Widdowson that far from constituting genocide, aboriginal children gained educational benefits by attending Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, an outrageously scandalous opinion among some at MRU.
Her position on Indigenous issues would certainly have been considered heretical at MRU where extreme pro-indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-white privilege perspectives have long ruled.
Following her dismissal, Widdowson filed ten grievances, eight on procedural grounds and two on substantive ones. In his nearly 300-page decision, Jones threw out the grievances involving the improper procedures employed by the university in its dealings with Widdowson.
On discipline, Jones found that while Widdowson’s behaviour was “just cause” for discipline, her firing was “disproportionate” to that behaviour.
On one of Widdowson’s substantive grievances, Jones ruled that her two-week suspension was disproportionate, ruling that a letter of reprimand be substituted for the suspension.
When it came to Widdowson’s firing, Jones wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson’s conduct, but that dismissal was an inappropriate penalty.
However, Jones said that Widdowson’s continued employment with the university would not be viable for several reasons, including Widdowson’s ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her “persistence” throughout the arbitration hearing that several tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.
Instead, the arbitrator suggested, “In my judgment, this is an appropriate case in which to substitute a monetary payment rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.”
In an interview with CBC News on Friday, October 4, Widdowson said she’s pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling that she was wrongfully terminated but that she continues to be upset about how the arbitration approached the issue of harassment.
“People continue to think that I engaged in harassment, which I did not. I’ve done extensive analysis of the different findings which were put forward by the different investigators,” she said.
“There were four different investigators hired by MRU, and these investigators all had different, contradictory findings. What we need from the decision is for there to be a neutral person who makes findings of facts about this.”
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be reinstated,” she said during a phone interview with a national media outlet.
“The people who don’t want me to return to MRU, I don’t work with those people,” she replied.
She doesn’t “work with those people” because she shares nothing with them intellectually.
The irony is that Widdowson is an old-school leftist, a classical Marxist whose views on inequality focus on inter-class conflict having little to do with racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender identity, the preoccupation of contemporary identity politics, also known as wokeism.
Traditional Marxists and disciples of wokeism are both on the left, often the hard left. But they support incompatible paradigms about the causes and consequences of social and economic inequality, hence their mutual loathing.
Widdowson said she is appealing the decision to regain her tenured faculty position. It seems likely, however, that she’ll end up accepting a huge payout instead.
In his ruling, Jones found that although Widdowson has “controversial views on a number of topics … there has never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship; she has never received performance management counselling for either her teaching or scholarship; and the University has supported and recognized her scholarly activities.”
Mount Royal officials said, “While the formal process continues, we will have no further comment.”
Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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From the Brownstone Insitute
It’s late 2024, and masking has managed to remain a contentious issue. Years of misinformation from supposed “experts” like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx and organizations like the CDC have convinced millions of Very Smart People to believe that masks are an effective tool to reduce the transmission of respiratory viruses. This applies also to the flu, despite those same experts and organizations somehow neglecting to recommend masks for the decades of flu seasons pre-2020.
Forcing anyone to mask, given the substantial and robust evidence base showing conclusively that masks don’t work, was an indefensible policy decision. But specifically forcing children to mask was decidedly much, much worse.
And not just because it was a pointless exercise in pandemic theater, with zero evidence of efficacy.
But because it was actively causing harm too, as a new study shows.
New Study Confirms Harms of Masking Children
A new study co-authored by Tracy Beth Høeg delves into the side effects of masking, a subject completely ignored by experts and politicians desperate to exert control over individual behavior.
And in their discussion, it’s immediately obvious why their research and conclusions will be completely ignored by the mainstream media.
“There is a lack of robust evidence of benefit from masking children to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 or other respiratory viruses,” they explain. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The highest quality evidence available for masking children for COVID-19 or other viral respiratory infections has failed to find a beneficial impact against transmission. Mechanistic studies showing reduced viral transmission from use of face masks and respirators have not translated to real world effectiveness. Identified harms of masking include negative effects on communication and components of speech and language, ability to learn and comprehend, emotional and trust development, physical discomfort, and reduction in time and intensity of exercise.
It’s a masterpiece. No notes.
As the Cochrane Library review explained, as the data shows, as decades of accumulated evidence confirmed: Masks Don’t Work. For anyone, but especially for children, who could not wear or use masks properly, even if they were shown to have worked. Which they did not.
Experts demanded and politicians mandated that they wear them anyway, based on speculation, hope, and mechanistic studies that were conclusively disproven. And the harms were remarkable.
“Negative effects on communication and components of speech and language.” “Ability to learn and comprehend.” “Emotional and trust development, physical discomfort, and reduction in time and intensity of exercise.”
Just, you know, the basic building blocks of human development that children need to grow as well-adjusted, physically and mentally healthy teenagers and adults.
As Høeg and the other authors explain, this necessarily means that forcing children to mask fails any objective standard of harms and benefits.
Effectiveness of child masking has not been demonstrated, while documented harms of masking in children are diverse and non-negligible and should prompt careful reflection. Recommendations for masking children fail basic harm-benefit analyses.
Their next section is a complete dismantling of the CDC and the US public health bureaucracy, how they handled Covid, and how poor an example this sets for future pandemics.
In many locations in North America, children as young as two years of age were required to wear face masks daily for multiple consecutive hours, both indoors and outdoors, in school and childcare settings [1], [2]. This stood in stark contrast to European countries where masking was never recommended for children under the age of six and, in many countries, never under age twelve [3]. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s child masking recommendations deviated substantially from international guidelines [3], [4], [5]. The CDC continues to recommend masks for children down to age two in certain settings [1], [6], and this is in the absence of strategies for exiting these restrictions. In the event of a future public health threat, clear and consistent communication from public health officials about the criteria that will be used to withdraw temporary public health recommendations while data are gathered could serve to ease public anxiety, lessen distrust, and facilitate a return to a more normal life wherein ineffective recommendations are promptly discarded.
It’s a calm, thorough demolition of the incompetence and authoritarianism of the US public health establishment.
They repeat that there is no evidence to support masking children and explain that there is no real-world evidence showing the effectiveness of child mask mandates, with zero randomized controlled trials conducted to determine whether masking kids would prevent the spread of Covid. It’s inexcusable to mandate a policy with no evidence, but even worse considering the demonstrable harms.
“Speech, language, and learning: Humans rely on visual information provided by a speaker’s face to decode speech. Seeing mouth movements and facial gestures accelerates recognition of words and enhances speech comprehension [12], [19], [20], [21]. The integration of audio and facial information is crucial to speech perception and development. Visually impaired children often have delays in speech and language development [22], which may be due, at least in part, to reduced ability to perceive,” they write.
Masks prevent children from learning, from seeing mouth movements to facial gestures. They fundamentally detract from a child’s ability to develop speech and language. Among many other problems covered in the full study.
These harms were well-known before Covid. This isn’t new information, and it’s obvious common sense. So why did public health authorities ignore it, in favor of promoting evidence-free policies and mandates?
There are few reasonable explanations: panic, fear, or incompetence. Likely some combination of all three.
Forcing their absurd, fatalistic, hyper-safetyism on adults was and is one thing. Imposing it on children is another. And their refusal to admit they were wrong meant the growth and development of kids were most certainly harmed and stunted for years, while ensuring that there would be terrified, misinformed parents who would continue to force their kids to wear masks indefinitely.
When you consider those consequences, rationality fades, and a disturbing likelihood of malicious intent becomes a lot more realistic.
Republished from the author’s Substack
Author
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