Email sent to the UW AAUP Mailing List, 1/12/2022

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.

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