Alice Munro’s alma mater, Western University, has decided to pause its Alice Munro Chair in Creativity program amid revelations that Munro allegedly covered for her husband after her daughter told her he was sexually abusing her.
Andrea Robin Skinner, Munro’s daughter, wrote in an essay published in the Toronto Star on Sunday that Munro’s second husband, Gerald Fremlin, allegedly sexually assaulted her when she was 9 years old.
When Skinner told Munro, Skinner wrote, “my mother had no similar feelings for me. She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity.”
Munro and Fremlin stayed together until his death in 2013, despite Skinner’s protestations and Fremlin being charged with indecent assault in February 2005.
The literary world was left reeling after Skinner’s essay, with novelist Margaret Atwood telling The Daily Beast, “It was a bombshell for me. I’m shocked. I’m still trying to get my head around it. I had heard a rumor about it but very few details, after Gerry was dead and Alice was in an institution.”
Now, Western University is “carefully consider Munro’s legacy and her ties to Western,” Arts and Humanities acting dean Ileana Paul told the University’s student paper, the Western Gazette.
“We were deeply troubled to learn of Andrea Robin Skinner’s experience of childhood sexual abuse. Ms. Skinner has our unwavering support,” the university wrote on the chair’s website.
The position was created in 2018 to honor Munro and is currently held by author Sheila Heti.
The university also cancelled its Alice Munro Chair seminar course, according to the Western Gazette.
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