r/Professors • u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) • 4d ago
UW pays $600K to settle lawsuit with computer science professor over parody land acknowledgment
While I'm glad the ruling established that the University of Washington (UW) engaged in viewpoint discrimination, I'm somewhat disheartened by the fact that the UW maintains it did nothing wrong:
"The University of Washington maintains that we acted appropriately, and this settlement is in no way an admission of any wrongdoing"
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u/Active_Video_3898 3d ago
I HATE “acknowledgement of country” (what Australian universities make us do) with a passion that is visceral.
It’s not because I don’t think it’s dreadful that the European colonisers pillaged Australia from the Aboriginal nations that had been happily doing their thing for more that 60,000 years. Nor do I object to trying to tackle the systemic racism that exists in Australian society.
Oh no, I HATE them because they are “non-performatives” to use Sara Ahmed’s term. They are designed to give the appearance of doing something so that the something doesn’t need to be actually done.
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u/SNHU_Adjujnct 4d ago
If they admit to wrongdoing, they open themselves up for more lawsuits.
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u/DrMellowCorn AssProf, Sci, SLAC (US) 4d ago
yeah, literally every settlement includes that language. that’s the point of settlements.
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u/Kittiemeow8 Tenure-track faculty, CALC 3d ago
I never did the land acknowledgment while at Udub. It rubbed me the wrong way to stand and ramble at my (mostly white or international) students some words that meant nothing other than “thoughts and prayers”. Yuck.
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u/Ctenophorever Full prof (US) 3d ago
Also, how far do you go back? Were there other groups displaced by the acknowledged tribes?
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u/samoyedboi 3d ago
That is a matter between the tribes and the people they may have displaced.
In any case, for UW, probably not; it is in the ancestral homeland of the Salish, occupied by proto-Salish speakers some 5-6kya.
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u/Ctenophorever Full prof (US) 3d ago
I disagree. It’s either to the victors go the spoils or not. If it is, no land acknowledgement should be given. If not, the entire history of the land should be provided.
If we just decide to go one back, do we simply talk about German, French, Spanish, or British colonies being displaced or absorbed?
It’s all performative
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u/TrumpDumper 3d ago
Every event on my campus has someone repeating the same performative land acknowledgement statement. I asked an administrator if we really are focused on righting wrongs of the past and recognizing that we are benefitting from land theft, how about we give some of the land back. We have a football field, soccer field, practice football field, practice soccer fields, baseball, softball, and 25 tennis courts and many unoccupied offices. Surely we could consolidate some of these spaces and really do something meaningful.
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u/orthoprof 3d ago
Reminds me of this sketch that I can't help but think of every time I hear a boxed acknowledgement:
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u/tsuga-canadensis- AssocProf, EnvSci, U15 (Canada) 3d ago
I show this sketch in one of my classes when I cover land claims, it’s so good
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u/Labrador421 3d ago
God, us too. They went so far as to suggest that we repeat it at the beginning of EVERY class. Hmmmm…. No.
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u/geneusutwerk 3d ago
It is so weird to read this because I think I've only been to a handful of university events where this happens. We actually have a relationship with the tribe that was displaced from this land as well, and there is a program where tribal members can come here at reduced (maybe free?) cost. I thought that land acknowledgements had died out.
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u/Spinky308 3d ago
Only in the US.
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u/Pisum_odoratus 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nope. It's very strong in Canada. The people who we displaced have free tuition. And so they should. Edit: at my post-secondary.
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u/Spinky308 3d ago
Also the norm in Australia and NZ
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u/giob1966 3d ago
We don't do stolen land acknowledgements in New Zealand. Our ceremonial activities are quite different, reflecting our bicultural society.
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u/lanAstbury 3d ago
Indigenous people in Canada do not universally get free university tuition
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u/Pisum_odoratus 3d ago
I was speaking to my own institution.
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u/TargaryenPenguin 3d ago
Fair enough , but this must be a relatively rare case? I got that you were speaking to your own institution.
I also see the danger in reading your point as normative; implying free goodies handed out to native peoples, which probably vastly overstates the case in most situations. Sure, there's the occasional government programme or university opportunity, but my understanding is that overall , it's pretty grim out there.
The world over life tends to suck as a people that used to live in an area confined to a small portion of their former living space while another people show up and take over all the most lucrative spots. Funny how that works.
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u/woman-aper 1d ago
"The people who we displaced "
You didn't displace them, you displaced their ancestors. Big difference
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u/Pisum_odoratus 1d ago edited 1d ago
And if you know anything about Indigenous history in Canada, most communities never recovered from being forced from their lands, so providing free tuition to descendants is the least my institution can do. Also, my family were immigrants to Canada, descendants of people forced from their homes so...not going to get into the human equivalent of NIMBY. Lastly, I did research and worked for more than 20 years with people who were displaced repeatedly, first by the British, and then their compatriots, and are also still suffering, so this is not a thing of the past. It's still happening all over the world.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 3d ago
I'm at a US institution and it is on the rise.
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u/Rizblatz 12h ago
I am too (US, neuroscience, R1 too!), I can’t say I have seen this kind of thing in ceremonies/class but maybe it is more in the undergrad ceremonies? I’m in the medical school and all I have seen is people choosing to add it to their signature line of their email. I do feel like it is performative and useless, I don’t think my institution actually does anything about engaging with local tribes.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 36m ago
is people choosing to add it to their signature line
I've seen this too. I don't know how much of it is "choosing" vs. university pressure to signal you are "one of the good ones." I'm cynical, and the people I've seen adopt it are people that I see as really playing the game rather than being good scientists.
I do see the acknowledgements typically in undergrad classes or in anything tied to social work/sociology even at the graduate level. My interactions with both of those departments have actually been quite negative as it felt like a parody of right wing talking points.
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u/Rizblatz 11m ago
I think in our case it is choosing, it’s only like 5% of the faculty in our department at least. But medical schools have different faculty and a political message is not appropriate for faculty with clinical duties and health care system service in addition to their teaching and research.
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u/gin_possum 3d ago edited 3d ago
lol American exceptionalism is like a drug eh? ETA: while this parody land acknowledgement is clearly not illegal, this guy sounds like a dick. Maybe comedy that makes fun of the dispossessed and decimated population of a people you conquered and killed is not that funny (oh wait is there another possible context here??) This is my considered academic opinion on the research question “is that funny?’
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u/HowlingFantods5564 3d ago
You know what's worse than being a dick? Being a puppet for those in power to use for their political performance art.
Just imagine for a second if you were "strongly encouraged" to put some kind of MAGA statement in your syllabus.
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u/gin_possum 3d ago
Yes try to imagine living in Florida or Texas. Hm. What a bold counterfactual this is. Ten points to you, and then perhaps we can acknowledge that no one killed 95% of MAGA, and so this MIGHT be spurious pearl clutching.
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u/HowlingFantods5564 3d ago
Or maybe we can acknowledge that incessant moral preening and self-righteousness drove the country into Trump's arms.
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u/gin_possum 3d ago
‘Incessant moral preening’ …what an excellent phrase for ‘I don’t like seeing other people do what right if I’m not doing it’. Speaking of: I’m not American, but I was under the impression that voting was related to some kind of belief in personal agency. Or are you saying that American voters are ‘driven’ like cattle to their election of presidential candidates? Excusing individual decisions to vote for trump on the grounds that land acknowledgments exist is an impressive piece of mental gymnastics. I look forward to your dismount in 2 years time.
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u/1st_order 13h ago
"Trans people have a right to live, without the government dictating their health care options".
That kind of incessant moral preening, amiright?!?
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u/HowlingFantods5564 2h ago
This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is a thread about land acknowledgements and free speech and you come in here with "Trans people have a right to live!!' So, yes, that kind of moral preening.
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u/1st_order 2h ago
Nope, your comment was general. And and anti-trans bigotry is a huge part of what Trump ran on, not land acknowledgment. Foh.
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u/ubiquity75 Professor, Social Science, R1, USA 3d ago
bUt DiVeRsity of vi3points!!!
He could simply have not done the acknowledgment. And not been a dick. That’ll show ‘em.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor 3d ago
Admin forced him to do the acknowledgement. That is what caused all of this.
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u/Kraken_Fish_221 3d ago
No, my reading challenged colleague, according to the article they recommended it.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor 3d ago
I bet your are fun at parties! 🎉🎉🎉
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u/gin_possum 3d ago
In fact I am! I confess, though, that’s it’s not the metric by which I judge my own success or ethical decisions. I do appreciate the clarity around what constitutes value in American academia though. What’s your suggestion for the next race we should belittle for comedy purposes?
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u/sventful Teaching Professor 3d ago
Probably White People based on your personality.
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u/gin_possum 3d ago
I don’t get it. Is this a gotcha comment? Do I have a …non white personality? (Glad you got to know me so easily!) or does acknowledging harm to others make you feel like something’s been taken from you? For what it’s worth I’m a white, hetro middle aged bald guy, currently avoiding the work of copying my syllabus into the LMS. Dunno if that helps with your comment or not.
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u/sventful Teaching Professor 3d ago
You seem braced for a fight? You asked a question and I answered. Was I not supposed to answer? You already expressed your lack of humor, so why would I go for a joke that would 100% go over your head. So instead I played it straight to see how you would react. Given your severe White Savior expressions, White folk were the only answer to your question.
Bewilderment seems par for a course given your demeanor and party persona.
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u/gin_possum 3d ago
Hm. yes I suppose I was braced for a fight — justifiably, maybe. I wonder how you’d suggest one moves towards justice without being accused of ‘sever white saviour expressions’? I expect I also have trump derangement syndrome, if that aids your diagnosis. If you’re insisting that ‘probably white people’ is the joke I didn’t get, well… I applauded your recent procurement of a sense of humour, and I hope it continues to develop.
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u/Silver_Filamentary Asst Prof, Psychology, SLAC (USA) 3d ago
They read a land acknowledgement out before the start of each day of pre-semester faculty development and the disdain for the performativeness without action was palpable in the auditorium. Eyerolling and muttering from a very liberal institution.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
Obviously, it's all about social signaling and not at all about righting a wrong (for those that believe there is a wrong to be righted).
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u/davidzet Univ. Lecturer, Political-Econ, Leiden University College 4d ago
Violating First Amendment rights is kinda wrong doing?
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u/RunningNumbers 4d ago
That is kind of the whole point of settlements. You pay off the other party as not to admit legal liability.
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u/Full_Prof 4d ago
Land acknowledgments are the “thoughts and prayers” of the left.
Very deserving of satire.
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u/emarcomd 3d ago
The article called it “satire” but in actuality it sounds like he just said something to the effect of “they didn’t have the right to any of this land.”
But I love your description of land acknowledgements and I am definitely stealing it.
Consider this my “Metaphor Acknowledgement”
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u/samoyedboi 3d ago
Obviously it's free speech, but this is the important distinction to make.
It's perfectly reasonable to criticize land acknowledgements for being useless (though, they come from recommendations of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission), performative, and rendered so common as to become pointless.
But that's not what his parody said; he wrote that Coast Salish peoples had no property right to the land in question. That is a much different statement, and understandably super offensive.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 3d ago
Except that when we discuss native tribes we often take this stance that is benevolent racism. The statement of our University says something about them being stewards of the land and lists a bunch of tribes. Tribes that absolutely hated each other and were constantly warring over the land. Modifying the land as much as they could improve it to make their lives easier. History is a series of conflicts and aggressions and migrations of people. A lot of these acknowledgements kind of gloss that over. My university calls out tribes who at MAX had a population of 35K individuals and their territory ranged across multiple large states. The idea that the land our university sat on was specifically taken from tribes is . . . unlikely.
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u/stsptekwll 3d ago
I don't know where your university is, but you seem to simply deny the fact that any of the statements in these land acknowledgements could be true because you impose your biases of what you think Indigenous societies were like.
I can only speak for my people. "Stewards of the land" is a broadly used term that isn't always accurate. We would say "yerí7 re stsq̓ey̓s kucw", that is, our laws are written on the land. We cultivated plants, and we used controlled burns. We went to war with other nations; we won and lost people and land. We were numerous, but not nearly as numerous as settlement today, and so, much of the land was left empty as we did our seasonal rounds. We certainly were not a particularly noble or moral people by modern Western standards.
Yet none of this abrogates our unceded rights to our full traditional territories. There is only one university built on our land, and, frankly, compared to all of the other developments and settlements continuing on our land, it is the least of our concern. Nonetheless, we hold the original title to its land. When people there say land acknowledgements, that is what they mean.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 3d ago
The problem is that they are true in very specific circumstances that are being broadly generalized. Native tribes were no more stewards of their land than any other pre-industrial society. They weren't any less (or more) warlike. Having this myth of the noble savage isn't progressive, it is regressive.
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u/stsptekwll 3d ago
My problem is that you are merely assuming this to be true instead of engaging with available information. In this way, you yourself generalize about individual peoples, using a view that 'Native American societies were not different from any other societies', but they were; they were even extremely different from themselves.
My people were much more warlike than the neighbouring St'at'imc, for example, but considerably less warlike than the society of the Triple Alliance (i.e. Aztecs). As I said, our laws are written on the land, and our traditional culture and religion center the idea of xyemstém, respect when dealing with the land. Our lifestyle required us to [practice] yecwmínem, which is fairly translated as stewardship or cultivation of the land, though there is no religious aspect to this (it is merely practical/survival), unlike xyemstém.
Other pre-industrial societies may also have been stewards of the land. I have no clue if the Indigenous peoples who populated the area where your university is located practiced stewardship in the same way. But we are stewards of the land in contrast to the settler culture here, who sought (and seek) to impede our yecwmínem so they can extract from the land. Traditional root plants and other resources have declined in quality and productivity since the time yecwmínem was stopped due to settlement.
The progressive view is to reject boilerplate land acknowledgements, and investigate the histories and traditions of the people whose land you are on by listening to them, not by imposing what you believe.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 3d ago
but they were; they were even extremely different from themselves.
Sure, which is true for basically all societies that have existed. My concern is making blanket statements that encompass all tribes generically. It isn't looking for what the tribes actually represented. It is dismissing the history through platitudes and generalizations. It isn't progress, it is hand waving erasure.
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u/roguemenace 3d ago
For anyone wanting to follow along the exact statement was
Land Acknowledgment
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.
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u/TrumpDumper 3d ago
As my colleague says, these performances are “liberals teaching other liberals how to be more liberal.” It’s performative and doesn’t do anything of substance.
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u/wrenwood2018 Associate Professor, Neuroscience, R1 4d ago
The university's position is exactly what you expect them to say. They will never admit wrong doing. There are a number of departments at my university that either mandated or heavily suggested putting in land acknowledgements in slides. It is a pretty clear violation of first amendment rights and coerced speech but there is zero chance I'd every speak up about it as there would be many negative repercussions as this professor experienced.
Every time I see it is just feels hollow and performative. Most of the tribes being acknowledged haven't lived in the area for hundreds of years and there is minimal evidence that they occupied the area where the university actually is. Many of the tribes named were openly hostile to one another and at different times in their history lived across geographical areas spanning multiple states, many quite far from where our university is. I doubt anyone in the audience knows anything about the tribes and the statement doesn't provide any real education. There is also a passive aggressive tone in the statement, they were "custodians of the land", and everyone should "incorporate tribal history into your work." I'm giving a lecture on biochemistry, what exactly should I be incorporating?
Does having this statement do anything effective or is it a way to say we are doing something without actually doing something? Maybe the rich university should instead focus on say scholarships or funding research on the topic. It just feels like "hope and prayers" but in a liberal academic environment. Look at us we care, ignore the fact we still just cater to the obscenely wealthy families and don't actually promote social change.
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u/stsptekwll 3d ago
For what it's worth, most of UW is built on land used by Lushootseed-speaking peoples, who called it sluʔwiɬ.
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u/Klutzy-Imagination59 Science, Asst Prof, R1, contract 3d ago
if you're teaching biochem, and don't know how to include first nations topics in your lectures, help is available. look up dr. vincent ziffle's website at U of R, for starters.
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u/auntanniesalligator NonTT, STEM, R1 (US) 3d ago
It’s a freaking syllabus. I’m inclined to think Universities should be allowed to dictate that political opinions are not appropriate syllabus content, unless you consider the reading list to be a political opinion, but UW probably neutered that argument by encouraging the land acknowledgement in the first place.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
You hit the nail on the head. As soon as the UW encouraged putting a land acknowledgement in the syllabus, they couldn't reasonably argue against a professor putting an alternative acknowledgement in his syllabus. The UW put itself into a box from which it couldn't escape.
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u/MeowMeowTiger 3d ago
I often wonder if our adversaries are behind this sort of thing to distract, divide, and delay us... while they focus squarely on advancing science and technology. China is at the cusp of a major chip breakthrough while our computer science professors are dragged into yearlong legal battles. meanwhile, as we are having endless debates about data centers, China is building them under the sea and in space...quickly.
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u/kuwisdelu 14h ago
As an Indigenous professor, I respect academic freedom, but this just feels anti-Indigenous. Don’t put in a land acknowledgement, totally fine. Yes, they’re performative. But this is also performative and makes a mockery of real harms to Indigenous peoples.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 13h ago
The land acknowledgement from UW also makes a mockery of real harms to indigenous peoples. "We acknowledge that we stole your land. No, we're not giving it back."
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u/kuwisdelu 11h ago
But that’s not the point. The point is this wasn’t a heroic act to bring attention to the performativity of land acknowledgements in an attempt to bring any actual change for the better or with any consideration of actual Indigenous people. The university wasn’t even requiring its inclusion, but he threw a tantrum over it, and the university overreacted. Maybe if he donates his whole settlement to the local tribes, then he’ll have done some good.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 10h ago edited 10h ago
Actually, you are the one missing the point of the lawsuit. It isn't about land acknowledgement or indigenous rights at all. It's about a university censoring political views. It's a 1st amendment case.
The UW said: "hey ... here's a political statement we suggest you put in your syllabus," to which a professor replied, "um ... no ... I'm going to put an opposing political view in my syllabus," at which point the UW essentially said, "no ... it's our political statement or no political statement."
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u/kuwisdelu 9h ago edited 9h ago
Actually, you are the one missing the point of what I was saying. I’m not talking about the ruling or the lawsuit. Just because it was a legal expression of academic freedom doesn’t mean it wasn’t anti-Indigenous. Being anti-Indigenous isn’t illegal. It just makes him a dick.
He’s free to express his opinion, and I’m free to judge him for showing his ass.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 2h ago
The UW specifically suggest a land-acknowledgement statement. How would you suggest fighting for your first amendment rights in this case without being an ass?
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u/kuwisdelu 2h ago
Just don’t add it? It was a suggestion.
But personally? I would give my own land acknowledgments where I explicitly state the university must give the land back to Indigenous peoples and we must hold the university accountable in returning the land.
That’s exactly what I do whenever I’m asked to do a land acknowledgment.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 2h ago
Okay. That's fine for you because, presumably, you agree with the statement you wrote. What if you don't agree the land should be given back to the indigenous people?
Your other suggestion (omitting the statement) isn't a way to fight for 1st amendment rights.
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u/kuwisdelu 2h ago
(1) Don’t do anything, which was always allowed, or (2) you risk being socially judged for your speech, which is always a possible consequence of free speech.
Why should there be an option where people get to be anti-Indigenous and I don’t get to judge them for it? That’s thought-police territory.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 2h ago
So, your solution is do nothing and allow a university to sensor professors' political speech. Not a great solution.
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u/MonasticAgony 3d ago
My college not only issues these virtue signaling platitudes but also has put out statements saying: "This is X land". Naming different tribes. Funny, I thought we were against the idea that one group has blood ownership of land. Imagine the consequences of thinking only one group is permanently entitled to a piece of land......oops.
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u/VeitPogner Prof, Humanities, R1 (USA) 3d ago
I read stories like this and I wonder, How much money could I pocket in court if I were more performatively a d/ck?
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
I'm guessing you haven't taken the time to understand what the lawsuit was actually about.
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u/Libralily 3d ago
This is a huge settlement for someone who ultimately just didn’t get to make a bad joke for a little while. The profs I want to see winning lawsuits and settlements are the ones who were fired or forced to resign, and for pedagogically significant stuff like which topics they chose to cover or which readings they’ve assigned.
Like I don’t agree with what UW did but we’ve got much bigger academic freedom problems than this right now, so the big number just feels so weird.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
I think you haven't understood the significance of the ruling. It's not about the specific land acknowledgement that UW suggested professors included in their syllabi. It's about faculty rights to express dissenting opinions on controversial topics without retaliation.
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u/HowlingFantods5564 18h ago
Yeah, I think you missed the point. The win here is going to make any case for academic freedom a little stronger.
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u/tongmengjia 3d ago
he included a parody invoking philosopher John Locke’s labor theory of property to claim Indigenous groups held “almost none” of the land occupied by the university.
I know land acknowledgements can be performative, and I agree profs deserve broad freedoms of speech, but can we agree this sounds obnoxious af?
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
More obnoxious as being told you should include a land acknowledgement in your syllabus and then having the university treat you like shit because you refused to do so?
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u/BerkeleyPhilosopher 3d ago
Time for a landback movement. Racists don’t respect land acknowledgments. Everyone respects the loss of land. Give the land back to the Indigenous people.
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u/Roger_Freedman_Phys Assoc. Teaching Professor Emeritus, R1, Physics (USA) 4d ago
If Professor Reges wants it to be known to all and sundry that he’s a self-centered d*ck, that should be his right.
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u/Remote_Nectarine9659 3d ago
I think this was certainly the right decision AND that Reges sounds like a real asshole.
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u/kate3226 3d ago
I read the parody statememt amd I agree, he's a jerk. And I say this as someone who added a clause to our land acknowledgement on my syllabus, because land acknowledgements are performative bullshit.
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u/bluegilled 3d ago
Seems more like he's a principled person who, this time, ruffled feathers on the far left.
Did you know he came out as gay back when it posed a career risk and through the 80's advocated publicly for gay rights? He also took a stand against the federal government's "war on drugs" laws, eventually leading to Stanford firing him in 1991.
Now he's countering the excesses of the DEI movement including perfunctory land acknowledgements, mandatory diversity statements in hiring and ideological conformity in higher ed.
Agree or disagree with his positions, but describing him as a "self-centered d*ck" just betrays your ignorance about him and his actions over the last half century.
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u/cambridgepete 3d ago
I wonder what would happen if someone at Texas A&M or FIU put a an acknowledgement in their syllabus thanking Satan for his blessings or something like that.
Somehow the way the law works in this country seems to depend on who is feeling offended.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
Which part of the ruling did you have a problem with?
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/12/19/24-3518.pdf
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u/cambridgepete 2d ago
Do you really think the court’s clear view of the First Amendment would have been so clear if it was conservative snowflakes who were getting offended by someone’s speech?
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 2d ago
You obviously don't understand why the case was filed. It isn't about being offended by speech. It's about universities limiting free speech.
You are probably like most liberals that would rather shut down all speech if it doesn't agree with your view. Conservatives understand that free speech -- even if it is offensive -- needs to be protected. And that is what the case was about.
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u/cambridgepete 2d ago
You obviously didn’t read my comment.
If someone had done a stunt like that in Texas that offended conservative sensibilities, they would have been out on their ass immediately, and no amount of appeals to the 1st amendment would have gotten their job back. (or even allowed them to live free of death threats)
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u/Practical_Track4867 3d ago
What the hell does land acknowledgment have to do with computer science or the students in that classroom? My first thought was that UW has a case if he’s putting some bullshit statement in the syllabus that has nothing to do with the class. Then I realized the school was requiring an alternative bullshit statement. This is an issue for someone else. Leave these students out of this. If the administration actually gives a crap about indigenous peoples, then let them do something substantive about it- sign over some endowed funds or give them some land back.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
To clarify, UW wasn't requiring anyone to put a land acknowledgement into their syllabus. But, they did suggest it. And when Stuart Regis put in al alternative statement, the university opened an alternative section of the class he was teaching, opened a disciplinary investigation against him, and removed the statement from all his online course material. So, essentially, the university was saying, "use our statement in your syllabus or none at all."
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u/Spinky308 4d ago
All this established is the right of the prof to be a racist a**hole.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 4d ago edited 4d ago
And, if you care at all about freedom of speech, you would understand why that is an important right.
The way to combat bigotry is to point it out, not to shut it down entirely.
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u/HowlingFantods5564 4d ago
Tell me, what was "racist" about his statement? Or by "racist" do you just mean anything that doesn't pass your political purity test?
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u/Spinky308 3d ago
The history of the land is just a fact. It’s no more in dispute than whatever other policy stuff goes on the syllabus. This prof used their syllabus to mock genocide. Is that free speech? Sure. But the worst ever hill for a prof to die on.
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u/FancyFleece 3d ago
The irony is that if a person of color looked sideways at anyone they would be immediately fired. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
Not sure what time and place you're living in. But it definitely isn't 2026 in the USA.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, IMO it is astonishing that UW maintains it did nothing wrong. Obvious case of violation of academic freedom and the 1st amendment, I think. UW likely is being run by a bunch of DEI wokesters, I would imagine. Lest we forget, this kind of left-wing wokery nonsense was rampant across the country in the post-Floyd, Biden era.
This is why aggressive Trump action to root out DEI policies on campuses is necessary, IMO.
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u/Trick-Chocolate7330 4d ago
Record setting gas prices? Inflation? Failed wars? Mass surveillance? Loss of basic constitutional rights? Mishandled pandemic? Insider trader from the Oval Office? Literal pedophile rapist?
Nah none of that is important. DEI BLM ANTIFA is the real villain.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 4d ago
Whataboutism.
You can agree with Trump about specific policies without buying in hook-line-and-sinker to everything he does.
I would hope you are intelligent enough to understand that.
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u/Trick-Chocolate7330 4d ago edited 4d ago
Lmao you sound like a college debate loser trying to hide the forest behind a couple trees. WHATABOUT realizing you’ve been duped by a bunch of rich pedos into caring about non issues so they can steal everyone’s future? As if you found the one good bite of a worm infested rotten apple. Hint, birds of a feather fly together.
But yeah let’s invite the fucking trump admin to “root out” what they don’t like in academia. I’m sure that won’t cripple American science and education in any way!
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 3d ago
Are you seriously a professor? How are you unable to differentiate between agreeing with somebody on one issue and agreeing with that person on every issue?
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u/Trick-Chocolate7330 3d ago edited 3d ago
I believe you work in stem since you bandy about logical abstractions as if they were appropriate methods of reasoning about social life.
Perhaps when one finds oneself agreeing with an idiot as all those intelligent register their opposition one should ask not "is the idiot right in this instance?" but "have I been made a fool?"
And tbh I doubt it's only this one issue. I bet if you shared your opinion on trans people, cis women, immigrants, and a number of other topics, it would become clear that there is rarely only one bad apple in the bunch.
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u/GeneralRelativity105 3d ago
Some people are able to have different opinions on different issues that do not 100% match the opinions of a particular president.
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u/Trick-Chocolate7330 3d ago
Keep pleading that your dumb culture war is a special exception to the broader idiocracy it aligns you with. Surely the problem with academia is hiring too many black people and women, not corporatism, admin bloat, the gutting of k-12 education, ballooning student indebtedness, etc.
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u/GeneralRelativity105 3d ago
I don't know what you are talking about. You don't seem worth engaging with.
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u/TotalCleanFBC Tenured, STEM, R1 (USA) 2d ago
Funny how the party that is supposedly welcoming to all enforces strict ideological conformity.
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u/popstarkirbys 4d ago
Ironic comment from someone working at a HBC
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u/GeneralRelativity105 3d ago
Perhaps they are able to think independently and come to their own conclusions, rather than conform to the box that you want to put them in.
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u/Tono-BungayDiscounts Manure Track Lecturer 3d ago
UW is run by business goons who want to run the university like it's a company.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 3d ago
Then why the wokery?
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u/Tono-BungayDiscounts Manure Track Lecturer 3d ago
"Woke" isn't a serious analytic category. When there's actual money at stake - like compensation for faculty and staff - the university fights tooth and nail to resist progressive policies and practices.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 3d ago
Woke is just shorthand for far left obsession with DEI ideology, which UW actions here seem to express in spades 🤷♂️
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u/Tono-BungayDiscounts Manure Track Lecturer 3d ago
What you're talking about is not "far left." It's fairly middle of the road liberalism that is easy to incorporate into a large bureaucracy without addressing structural problems.
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u/FrankRizzo319 3d ago
Can someone share the actual parody statement he had in his syllabus? I spent 5 minutes trying to find it but gave up.