Richard Stingle, who died Nov. 22 in his 89^th year, will forever be remembered for his principled and courageous stand during the Harry Crowe case of 1958 at United College, Winnipeg (now the University of Winnipeg), where he’d accepted his first major academic job.

Crowe was fired from his tenured position for “expressed attitudes to the College, the Board (of Regents) and the Principal as reflected in his communications.” Three of his colleagues, including Stingle, who was a member of the executive of the United College Faculty Association, resigned in protest.

Crowe’s dismissal led to the first CAUT committee of inquiry whose report compelled the college’s board to reinstate Crowe but not his colleagues. In protest, Crowe and 13 other faculty resigned from their positions at United College. Crowe’s firing and the resignations of the 16 were headline news across Canada, dividing Winnipeg and the univer­sity community.

One year after the Crowe events, CAUT adopted its first policy state­ment on academic freedom and established an Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee, defining the centrality of academic freedom to its mission and creating the model for investigating allegations of vio­lations of academic freedom that CAUT has used since.

In 2009 CAUT awarded its highest honour, the Milner Memorial Award, to the 16 who resigned in solidarity with Crowe, “for their profound and self-sacrificing act in de­fence of academic freedom.”

Stingle went on to teach English at the University of Western Ontario, where he worked for 30 years until his retirement.