U. Washington professor wins $600K settlement in parody ‘land acknowledgement’ case
Professor hopes victory will ‘help reverse a decade-long trend towards ideological conformity in academia’
A University of Washington professor who was disciplined for adding a parody “land acknowledgement” to his syllabus won a $600,000 settlement Thursday in a lawsuit against his employer.
The settlement comes four years after Professor Stuart Reges first filed his free speech case against the public university, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
In a statement Thursday, the computer science professor expressed hope that his legal victory “will remind public universities that they are obligated to respect the First Amendment rights of their students, faculty, and staff.”
“More importantly, I hope that my protest can help reverse a decade-long trend towards ideological conformity in academia and help to convince them that instead of ‘protecting’ students from controversial ideas, they should be helping them to learn how to cope with disagreement,” Reges stated.
Reges and the University of Washington reached the final settlement after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that administrators were “liable under the First Amendment for retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.”
