University Of Washington Settles Case Against Professor Disciplined For Mocking Land Acknowledgment

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Land acknowledgments have become standard at academic and political events, including the opening of the Obama Presidential Library and a recent Michigan Democratic event. While supporters insist it merely shows respect for original inhabitants, critics argue it is the ultimate virtue signaling and is increasingly being forced on both speakers and audiences. One critic is Professor Stuart Reges, who teaches at the computer science and engineering school of the University of Washington. He has now received a settlement from the University of Washington, which spent a significant amount of time and resources in response to his mocking of the school's land acknowledgment.

We previously discussed the case of Professor Reges, who was disciplined because he refused to post the school's "land acknowledgment" and instead posted an alternative statement. Professor Reges sued the university and various officials in 2022. Professor Reges has declared "Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court."

The defendants included Nancy Allbritton, the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Washington, Magdalena Balazinska, Director of the Allen School, UW President Ana Mari Cauce, and the Allen School's Vice Director Dan Grossman.

After the university encouraged faculty to add a prewritten "Indigenous land acknowledgment" statement to their syllabi, Reges decided to write his own statement. He has now been told that, while the university statement is optional, his statement is unacceptable because it questions the indigenous land claim of the Coast Salish people.

The school provided a recommended statement for all faculty to post and/or read to their students at the first of every course:

"The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations."

Professor Reges disagreed with that statement and expressed his doubts to the faculty while also noting that "Magda" did not want the faculty to discuss such reservations on the email system. That may refer to the Director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, Magdalena Balazinska.

Reges' alternative statement read:

"I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington."

The labor theory (which I teach) generally refers to John Locke's theory. In his Second Treatise, Locke laid the foundation for property as a divine gift of God that began in the state of nature, where all was created in common by God. Reges declared that these tribes, indigenous people, "can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land and that the claim of the university land was not sufficiently used or developed to bestow a claim upon the Coast Salish people. That acknowledged group is a broad collection of different groups with ethnic or linguistic associations."

In his lawsuit, Professor Reges says that, after he stated his own views, the university moved against him.

"On January 4, 2022, the day after Professor Reges's Computer Science and Engineering 143 class met for the first time, Defendant [Magdalena] Balazinska, Director of the Allen School, sent Professor Reges an email ordering him to remove the statement from his syllabus because it was 'offensive' and created a 'toxic environment.'"

Reges noted that the university allowed other professors "to include modified statements in their syllabi that were more consistent with the University's recommended statement." The operative point is that "other faculty at the Allen School continue to include land acknowledgment statements in their syllabi that differ from the University's own statement, so long as they express a viewpoint consistent with the University's recommended version."

According to the complaint, Balazinska then allegedly removed his dissenting statement, and the university emailed his students to apologize for their professor's "offensive" land acknowledgment opinion and advised them on "three ways students could file complaints against" him. The students were later allegedly told by Balazinska that, according to the complaint, "all students in Professor Reges's Computer Science and Engineering 143 class section [can] switch into a new 'shadow' class section, which would meet at the same time as Professor Reges's class section."

Reges notes that the alternative class was a series of recorded lectures, but viewed as a reasonable alternative to being in a class with a professor with a dissenting view on land acknowledgments. Some 170 out of his 500 students took the alternative course.

I previously wrote how universities can use course assignments and other collateral means to isolate dissenting professors in an effort to get them to resign. This is especially true of tenured faculty.

I wrote that:

The Reges case could prove a major challenge to that orthodoxy. All university faculty should have condemned the university's actions as an attack on academic freedom and freedom of speech, regardless of how they feel about land acknowledgment. The silence, however, is a reflection of how much has changed in higher education."

It has now resulted in a $600,000 settlement after the university spent massive amounts of public money over four years to fight this lawsuit over the abusive treatment of Professor Reges.

The university settled only after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in December that administrators were "liable under the First Amendment for retaliation and viewpoint discrimination."

Unfortunately, there is no indication that the university officials who created this fiasco will be held accountable in any way. Millions were spent, and years of litigation were triggered by the orthodoxy of the university. However, these officials will likely be heralded by their colleagues, and nothing is likely to change in the University of Washington's intellectual echo chamber.

However, according to FIRE, the settlement "stipulates that the university cannot take any further action against Reges."

Congratulations to Professor Reges and FIRE for a well-fought case with potentially lasting implications in protecting free speech and academic freedom.