The Alberta authorities says adjustments are coming to additional shield free speech on campuses as a former professor who has spoken out about so-called “woke” insurance policies prepares for a showdown with the College of Lethbridge.
Minister of Superior Schooling, Demetrios Nicolaides, mentioned in a press release that he would announce the adjustments within the coming days, however didn’t give additional particulars.
He says he was responding to the case of Frances Widdowson, a former professor at Mount Royal College in Calgary who was invited by a College of Lethbridge professor to talk this week about her considerations {that a} mob mentality and ‘woke insurance policies’ more and more threaten educational freedom.
Widdowson was fired from Mount Royal in late 2021 amid controversy over her feedback praising the academic advantages of Canada’s residential college system whereas questioning whether or not the abuse of the faculties in opposition to Indigenous kids could possibly be referred to as genocide.
The College of Lethbridge gave Widdowson house for the occasion, however canceled it this week after deciding her views wouldn’t advance the controversy about residential colleges and trigger hurt via the ache and struggling inflicted on First Nations kids and – inflicted on households, to a minimal.
Widdowson says she plans to ship the speech on campus on Wednesday afternoon anyway and challenged college safety to throw her out.
Opposition NDP chief Rachel Notley says Nicolaides ought to rethink his statements, including that he’s disturbingly tone-deaf to college students – significantly indigenous individuals – who would in any other case need to host a visitor lecturer extolling the virtues of faculties that stained by the legacy of horrific abuse.
