Professor sues University of Washington for violating his free speech rights for disciplining him – Daily Mail

July 13, 2022 News Editor

A University of Washington computer science professor claims his First Amendment rights have been violated after he was punished for his dissenting view on historic claims Native Americans have to the campus land, according to a lawsuit filed in Seattle federal court.

Stuart Reges, 63, who teaches an introductory course to computer programing, broke ranks with the university administration’s ‘indigenous land acknowledgment statement,’ which holds that the Coastal Salish people, a native tribe, have historic claims to campus land.

In Reges’s syllabus for his course, 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.’

Stuart Reges, 63, a computer science professor at the University of Washington, says he was retaliated against for disagreeing with the administration’s indigenous land acknowledgment statement

Reges, an award-winning professor, said the university created a ‘shadow’ class and encouraged students to drop his course

He said he based his statement on John Locke’s theory of property, which holds that ownership derives from bettering the land.

Reges said in his lawsuit that none of this students complained when he reviewed his syllabus on the first day of class.

He says other faculty have modified versions of the university’s acknowledgement statement, but they’re in lockstep with the administration’s view and haven’t gotten into trouble.

Nevertheless, the university told him the complaints rolled in.

The head of the computer science department, Magdelena Balazinska, called his statement ‘offensive’ and accused him of creating a ‘toxic environment,’ according to the suit.

She removed his statement without his permission, Reges countered.

In response to those complaints, the college created a ‘shadow’ computer- programming class that was taught by a different professor on tape and encouraged students to drop Reges’s course for the duplicate course.

Balazinska accused him of ‘causing a disruption to instruction in [his] class.’

Reges said that he taught 400 students in the Winter quarter without incident and even helped on win a computer programming contest.

Balazinska told news station KTTH that his syllabus statement ‘dehumanizes and demeans indigenous people.’

The university also launched an disciplinary investigation into the professor, which has now entered its Day 133.

‘The specter of termination has had a chilling effect on his speech as a public university faculty member,’ Reges charged in the lawsuit, adding: ‘Faculty must remain free to express these views to fulfill their duties to educate and challenge students, and to avoid a “pall of orthodoxy” on campus.’

Reges says he’s been retaliated against for ‘swimming against him through the creation of a ‘shadow’ class section and subjecting him to a disciplinary investigation under vague and overbroad university policies.’

Why Native American land is contested

The dispute over whether Native American tribes hold a legitimate claim to native land goes back to the Dawes Act of 1887, according to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation.

The debate pits tribal attitudes and traditions toward the land stewardship against Western views of private property.

Under the Dawes Act, officially known as the General Allotment Act, native land was converted from the land tenure system, which holds that whoever is using the land holds the rights to the territory, to private property.

Western private property theories developed by John Locke posit that the exertion of labor on property gives it value and the person who betters the land gains ownership over it.

The Dawes Act intended to assimilate Native American tribes by forcing them to ‘assume a capitalist and proprietary relationship with property,’ according to the book, ‘The Settlement of America.’

Under the act, the head of the family has four years to select 160 acres, but the US government would hold it in trust for 25 years.

Those who accepted the land were allowed to become citizens.

This was also a way to open the rest of the land to settlers to purchase or settle for their ownership.

It’s estimated that the Dawes Act reduced tribal control over American land from 140 million acres to approximately 56 million acres.

Anthropologists have argued that land acknowledgement statements misinterpret Native American culture by stating there are historic claims to the land, when indigenous culture did not recognize this type of private property.

‘If UW encourages professors to take a political stance on their syllabi, it cannot punish those professors who diverge from the school’s pre-approved stance,’ said Katlyn Patton, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who is representing Reges. ‘At UW, the message to faculty is clear: Toe the party line or say goodbye to your students.”

Reges has been a college professor for 40 years, the last 20 of which he’s taught at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, though he doesn’t have tenure. He’s received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011 and has received positive reviews from students.

He claims a long history of speaking out about ‘identity and mental health as a gay man in the 1970s and 1980s,’ according to the suit. He was fired from Stanford University for speaking out against the War on Drugs, he claims.

In addition to suing the university, he’s named the school president Ana Mari Cauce, the head of the computer science department, Magdelena Balazinska, Dan Grossman, the vice director and Nancy Allbritton, the dean of the engineering school.

‘The University of Washington is aware of the complaint,’ spokeswoman Michelle Ma said in an email to MailOnline. ‘The university continues to assert that it hasn’t violated Stuart Reges’ First Amendment rights and we look forward to presenting our position if called to do so.’

Acknowledgement statements are not unique to the University of Washington: A 2017 study by the University of British Columbia found nearly 100 college web sites across Canada alone with indigenous land acknowledgements in one form or another.

The study questioned the purpose and the value of such statements and if they were merely a ‘tokenistic practice of checking the box.’

But according to the Native American Council, land acknowledgement statements are ‘important to understand the long-standing history that has brought you to reside on the land, and to seek to understand your place within that history.’

Further, they say that ‘land acknowledgements don’t exist in a past tense, or historical context; colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.’

Reges disagrees with that.

‘Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court, he said. ‘University administrators turned me into a pariah on campus because I included a land acknowledgment that wasn’t sufficiently progressive for them.’