In December of 2021, Francis Widdowson was terminated from her position as a tenured professor in the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University (MRU) for criticizing “woke” ideas.
Rights and Freedoms Advocate is now supporting Francis Widdowson’s fight for academic freedom and free speech.
Increasingly, on university campuses, individuals are finding their rights disregarded and attacked if they don’t follow the “script” in terms of what’s deemed “acceptable.”
Widdowson was quoted in a May 3, 2022 Western Standard article as saying, “the open exchange of ideas and the ability to debate a wide range of topics are under threat in universities today. Promoting critical thinking has been gradually overtaken by identity politics that has become totalitarian, which is the focus of woke-ism.”
This is a cause for alarm, because universities are supposed to be bastions for free speech, where one can develop and discuss new ideas, opinions, and passions.
Widdowson said in the same article that university policies are becoming “weapons of woke-ism. These policies turn intellectual disagreements into matters for investigation and disciplinary action.” The disciplinary actions from universities, including MRU, against individuals like Francis Widdowson for exercising their rights to free speech is not in keeping with what our constitution stands to defend, and Rights and Freedoms Advocate is here to support them in their fight to defend those rights.
