UW professor wins First Amendment victory in land acknowledgment dispute

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the University of Washington violated a professor’s free speech rights by investigating and retaliating against him after he mocked the school’s land acknowledgment.

Stuart Reges, a non-tenured computer science and engineering teaching professor at the University of Washington, says in his complaint against the university, that in September 2020, university officials encouraged professors to include the university’s land acknowledgment statement on their class syllabus. Land acknowledgments are statements commonly used by universities and public institutions to recognize Native American tribes as the original inhabitants of the land on which campuses now sit.

Reges parodied the university’s land acknowledgment in his Computer Programming II class syllabus in January 2022. Instead of using the university’s land acknowledgment, he wrote, “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.”

His comment was a reference to philosopher John Locke’s labor theory of property, under which ownership derives from improving the land. 

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Reges sued the university in July 2022, alleging that UW officials ordered him to remove the statement, condemned it as offensive, and encouraged students to file complaints. Administrators also created a competing “shadow” course section, so students could avoid his class, and launched a disciplinary investigation that raised the possibility of further discipline or termination.

In a ruling Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling and sent the case back to determine appropriate relief. 

The court ruled that the lower court had erred in granting summary judgment to UW on Reges’s retaliation claim, saying his syllabus statement was protected academic speech on a matter of public concern and that the university unlawfully retaliated against him by investigating, reprimanding, and threatening discipline because of the views he expressed.

“Student discomfort with a professor’s views can prompt discussion and disapproval,” Judge Daniel Bress wrote for the majority. “But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor.”

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Reges was represented by attorneys at the Freedom for Individual Rights and Expression, who celebrated the ruling.

“Today’s opinion is a resounding victory for Professor Stuart Reges and the First Amendment rights of public university faculty,” said FIRE attorney Gabe Walters. “The Ninth Circuit agreed with what FIRE has said from the beginning: Universities can’t force professors to parrot an institution’s preferred political views under pain of punishment.”

A lower court had previously ruled in favor of the university, granting the officials’ motion to dismiss Reges’s vagueness and overbreadth challenges to its nondiscrimination policy, and granted their motion for summary judgment for Reges’s retaliation and viewpoint discrimination claims, according to FIRE.

Reges responded to the legal win in comments to Fox News Digital:

“Land acknowledgements are performative acts of conformity. The Ninth Circuit has affirmed that my parody was a reasonable way to participate in the discussion of this important topic,” he said.

“In my 39 years of teaching, I have always fought for free speech even though it nearly cost me my dream job. I hope my victory will help inspire others to push back against those who have been attempting to limit free expression on college campuses.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to the University of Washington for comment. A spokesperson gave the following statement:

“We are evaluating the appeals court’s 2-1 decision and considering our next steps. We maintain that we have a responsibility to protect our students and that the UW acted appropriately. Prof. Reges has retained his faculty position and has continued teaching throughout this process.”

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