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The university’s president said he will defend the professor’s right to academic freedom “at all costs.”

“I have complete support for Kris Wells and the research he does. I defend his right to make statements based on the research he does,” David Turpin said Friday from Mexico City.

Failing grade

In 2015, Education Minister David Eggen ordered all school boards, independent and charter schools in the province to create or amend policies that spell out how gender diverse students’ rights would be protected in schools. Nearly a year after boards were required to submit them to the ministry, the minister has not said how many of them comply with the law.

Last August, Wells and Public Interest Alberta issued a “report card” analyzing how well four of those policies complied with laws passed in 2015. They concluded Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools’ policy failed to protect students, and gave Grande Prairie Catholic Schools’ policy a D grade. The school districts refuted Wells’ findings.

Last September, the superintendents of both school districts, the then-president of the Council of Catholic School Superintendents of Alberta and the president of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association wrote letters to Turpin and university chancellor Douglas Stollery calling Wells’ statements “inaccurate and intolerant.”

They took issue with Wells’ comments that teaching students chastity is “embarrassing and inappropriate in 2016.”