A federal appeals court has ruled that the University of Washington violated the First Amendment by retaliatingagainst a professor who refused to parrot the school’s preferred political messaging in his syllabus.
In a decision issued Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with University of Washington computer science professor Stuart Reges, finding that university officials unlawfully punished him for including a parody land acknowledgment that challenged the ideological premise behind UW’s recommended statement.
The case stems from a 2021 push by UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering encouraging professors to include land acknowledgments in their syllabi. Reges instead wrote his own, stating 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.”
University administrators quickly labeled the statement “offensive” and “inappropriate,” launched a disciplinary investigation, removed the statement from his syllabus without consent, and warned Reges against repeating it in the future. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued, arguing the school engaged in viewpoint discrimination.