Mocking campus orthodoxy just earned one University of Washington professor a $600,000 settlement.
Computer science instructor Stuart Reges spent four years battling the taxpayer-funded university after administrators investigated and reprimanded him for putting a satirical “land acknowledgment” in his syllabus.
UW had encouraged professors to include its preferred acknowledgment. Reges offered his own: “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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The university investigated him for a year, withheld a merit-pay increase during the probe and warned of further discipline if he repeated the statement.
UW even created a separate version of his introductory course without him after students complained, according to court records.
Then the courts intervened.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Reges had plausibly shown First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.
Now UW will pay $600,000 to settle the case — and has agreed that Reges can keep his satirical acknowledgment in his syllabus “in perpetuity.”
The settlement also bars the university from retaliating against Reges over the statement or creating competing “shadow” sections of his courses because of it.
“I hope that my protest can help reverse a decade-long trend towards ideological conformity in academia,” Reges said.
Four years later, the parody survived.
The university’s punishment didn’t.
More over at Just The News:
Professors punished for resisting woke orthodoxy win six-figure settlements, freedom to teach https://t.co/g7n9I39l3e
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) September 4, 2026
