Reports by The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Professors from the University of Washington must adopt the University’s position or they will not be able to put a mention of the land acknowledgement in their syllabi.
It has become increasingly common in academia to promote statements that formally recognize indigenous ties to the land occupied by a university, but the UW Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering encourages professors to include a land acknowledgement on their syllabi at the expense of their First Amendment rights.
This was something Professor Stuart Reges had to learn the hard way. A land acknowledgment on his syllabus that didn’t conform with a university approved statement was removed by UW administrators. Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called on UW to ensure that faculty, if they choose to address this topic in their syllabi, can use the university’s statement or craft their own.
“UW pays lip service to inclusivity, but censorship is incompatible with inclusivity,” said FIRE Program Officer Zach Greenberg, who wrote today’s letter to UW. UW should reevaluate the list of “best practices” for inclusive courses in light its tolerance of viewpoint discrimination.
On the list, the Allen School includes an “Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” statement. The list notes that the provided statement is “an example,” suggesting that the university intends it to be a starting point that can be adapted, not a rigid take-it-or-leave-it statement. The fact that the statement could be adapted seemed clear—until a professor wrote one that administrators didn’t like.
On Dec. 8, Reges criticized land acknowledgment statements in an email to faculty and included a modified statement he put in his syllabus: “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.” Reges made reference to Locke’s philosophy that land improvements establish property rights.
Reges stated, “I chose to see if it was okay to present an alternative viewpoint.” Their definition of diversity doesn’t include conservative views.
Almost a month later, on Jan. 4, Allen School Director and Professor Magdalena Balazinska ordered Reges to remove his modified statement from his syllabus immediately, labeling it as “inappropriate” and “offensive,” creating “a toxic environment in [Reges’] course.” Reges refused and criticized the department’s inconsistency in allowing other professors to include modified statements that are less critical of the pre-approved version.
In response, Balazinska countered that she “will ask any instructor who uses a land acknowledgment other than the UW land acknowledgment to remove or replace it,” meaning the Only position professors’ syllabi can take on this issue is the one preapproved by the Allen School.
Balazinska also claimed that Reges’ land acknowledgment statement is “causing a disruption to instruction” (UW has not specified what that “disruption” is) and “is not related to the course content,” and informed Reges that she unilaterally removed the language from his syllabus. Balazinska emailed Reges’s class to apologize for his syllabus, which allegedly contained an offensive statement under “Indigenous Land Acceptance.”
As a public institution bound by the First Amendment, UW must uphold its professors’ free speech and cannot discriminate against them based on viewpoint. UW may encourage and suggest examples for its faculty to incorporate land acknowledgment statements into their syllabuses, but not to require them to. Only You can either approve statements of support or you may remain silent about the matter.
Also, I emailed Professor Balazinska asking about local stories on the topic.
University of Washington is dedicated to providing an equal and inclusive learning environment. Stuart Reges’s syllabus contained an offensive, inappropriate and irrelevant statement that was not appropriate for the course he is teaching. Invoking Locke’s labor theory property is dehumanizing and offensive to Indigenous people. It also goes against the respect and long-standing relationships that the UW enjoys with the Coast Salish and federally recognized tribes in the state.
Both the UW and The Allen School reserve the right of amending academic materials. This is because the syllabus for the intro to computer programming course does not provide the proper forum or place for discussing land acknowledgments. Reges’ statement, in fact, is not a land acknowledgement—and neither the UW nor the Allen School require a land acknowledgement to be included in a course syllabus. We first learned about it through student complaints. The course’s academic purpose has been significantly disrupted by the disruption.
Reges is free to express his personal opinions, and has done so. The Allen School and UW are deeply divided on the other platforms. But a syllabus doesn’t allow him to voice personal views that are not related to the course he is teaching.
You might have noticed that my question to you was:
His point, I believe, was that University’s preferred Land Acknowledgement, which professors are encouraged include in their syllabuses was irrelevant to the course he taught. Am I wrong?
Prof. Balazinska in turn responded:
The UW land acknowledgement is encouraged—again, not required—as a recognition of tribal sovereignty and stewardship of the land on which our campus sits. Instructors have the option to either include or exclude land acknowledgment. The course syllabus does not provide the right forum or place to debate or mock land acknowledgements or Indigenous people.
My thinking is that teachers should not include ideology in class material or syllabuses that have no connection to their subject. It’s interesting to see how people react to conquest history, regardless of whether they are in Europe, the Middle East, or the Americas. You can think of Israel (as well as Turkey, Poland, Turkey and Alsace), Spain, Kosovo. East Prussia, Belgium and many other countries. It’s something I don’t think is appropriate for computer science courses, nor my First Amendment classes.
However, once the university encourages (and even requires) faculty to include such topics in their curriculums, they lose the ability to fault rival faculty statements that are allegedly “not relevant” to the course content. Indeed, when it does so, it shows that it’s interested in indoctrination, not education—that it thinks a syllabus is an “appropriate place” in which to push one side of the issue, but not an “appropriate place” “in which to have a debate” in which the other side of the issue can be presented. While Locke’s theory about property may not be the most popular, it is one among many possible theories. It is however, something that isn’t “dehumanizing”, as is its application to American Indian tribes.
Land acknowledgments are not included in my syllabus. However, syllabuses shouldn’t be used for ideologic messages not related to the subject matter. But the University of Washington obviously does think they are a place for ideological messages unrelated to the class topic—if they are ideological messages the University likes.