Frances Widdowson posted the notice (see image below) on her social media, and in doing so performed the one act the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association (ULFA) most feared: she let people read it.
The document, issued by ULFA to its membership, announces that Widdowson, an academic with a substantial record of heterodox scholarship on Indigenous policy and the sociology of knowledge, was planning to visit the Lethbridge campus. It warns members of her possible presence. It invokes the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act. It encourages faculty to file Health and Safety reports should they find her presence “harmful or disruptive.” And in a footnote that betrays more anxiety than it conceals, it cautions members that Widdowson might file a freedom of information request and publish any emails naming her.
This is a document worth examining with care, because it is not what it presents itself to be.
