I sent the following email to the AAUP mailing list at UW:
From reges@cs.washington.edu Wed Jan 12 10:01:13 2022 Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 10:01:13 -0800 (PST) From: Stuart Reges <reges@cs.washington.edu> To: aaup@u.washington.edu Subject: case of censorship This quarter I followed the suggestion of our DEI experts in the Allen School and I included a land acknowledgment on my course syllabus for CSE143. But it wasn't an acceptable sentiment for the progressives in our school (see below for my version). After some students complained, our director ordered the removal of my land acknowledgment from my syllabus and the school quickly organized an alternative section of my course that offended students could switch into. I have written about this for Quillette: https://quillette.com/2022/01/12/against-land-acknowledgements/ As a state school, UW must respect the first amendment rights of its faculty. Any limits on what can be put on a syllabus must be content neutral. I believe that what the university has done constitutes a violation of my first amendment rights and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) agrees: https://www.thefire.org/university-of-washington-professor-created-toxic-environment-by-deviating-from-university-approved-language-about-native-american-land/ I welcome hearing other people's thoughts. --Stuart Reges, Teaching Professor, Computer Science & Engineering https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~reges/ 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.
As usual, there was no explanation for why they censored this. It was quite remarkable that a significant organization like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) was taking up my case and the moderators of the AAUP mailing list didn't allow readers to even hear about it.