University of Washington professor wins $600,000 settlement over parody ‘land acknowledgment’ 

A public university recently agreed to a $600,000 settlement after it punished a computer science professor who disliked the school’s land acknowledgment policy.

University of Washington professor Stuart Reges and school officials signed the settlement last month.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) will receive the $600,000 gross payment, which covers the costs of taking on the case.

The university also said it won’t remove the professor’s land acknowledgment parody from his current or future syllabi, although it isn’t happy with the outcome.

“The University of Washington maintains that we acted appropriately, and this settlement is in no way an admission of any wrongdoing,” the university said in a statement to GeekWire.

The school said it settled to avoid racking up more legal fees and costs as the case dragged out in court. Reges kept working for the school during the case.

The dispute started around 2019, when the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering started recommending its professors put land acknowledgments in their syllabi.

Three years later, Reges began including a parody land acknowledgment in the syllabus for his computer science class, taken by about 500 students.

“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,” he wrote.

His parody references John Locke’s view that people gain property rights by working the land.

The university disliked his message.

Allen School Director Magdalena Balazinska told him to remove his words “immediately,” claiming he created a “toxic environment.” When he said no, she had university staff replace his online syllabus with a version that removed his parody land acknowledgment.

The school also posted that it was “horrified” by his words. An administrator suggested asking students to file complaints because that would help the university take action, according to the Ninth Circuit’s amended opinion.

On Jan. 7, 2022, UW opened another section of Reges’ course with a different teacher. About 170 students switched to the other professor.

The university began disciplinary proceedings against Reges in March 2022. A faculty panel said he likely violated school policy, but the school closed the case against him in June 2023 without taking any action.

Reges sued the university in July 2022.

A federal district court ruled for the university. Then, a divided Ninth Circuit panel reversed that decision in December 2025.

The appeals court directed the lower court to enter judgment for Reges on his First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination claims and revived his challenge to UW’s harassment policy.

The court found little evidence that the parody disrupted the school, harmed students or supported UW’s claims about American Indian students leaving.

“First Amendment protection that rises and falls depending on how upset students become at a professor’s message is little protection at all,” Judge Daniel Bress wrote.

UW later replaced the policy, and the settlement bars further action against Reges over the parody.

“I hope that my protest can help reverse a decade-long trend towards ideological conformity in academia,” Reges said in FIRE’s announcement.

Heartlander News reported in 2025 that over 10% of campus cases involving FIRE were about demands that students or faculty support DEI initiatives and make land acknowledgments.

While the school called the land acknowledgment optional, it censored Reges for holding a different view. The settlement clarifies that he has a right to disagree with that state-sponsored messaging.

(Image credit: Screenshot / FIRE.org)