Summary of Facts in Reges vs Cauce
This document includes excerpts from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the case of Reges vs Cauce, et al. These excerpts lay out the basic facts of the case in chronological order. The full ruling is available here.
Stuart Reges is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington’s (UW) Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. Reges has taught introductory computer science courses at the Allen School since 2004. Before coming to UW, Reges taught computer science at the University of Arizona for eight years and at Stanford University for ten years.
Reges has publicly commented on sensitive issues throughout his career. For example, he has spoken with local and national media about his identity and mental health as a gay man. In 2018, Reges wrote an article entitled “Why Women Don’t Code,” which led a group of students to petition against the renewal of his contract.
The present controversy relates to UW’s adoption of an official school “land acknowledgment.” A land acknowledgment is a formal statement acknowledging that certain land was originally home to the Indigenous people who historically resided there. UW’s main campus is in Seattle, Washington, and Washington State is home to numerous federally recognized tribes. In 2015, the university adopted the following land acknowledgment: “The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.” According to UW’s Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, this land acknowledgment was developed, with input from local tribes, “to acknowledge that our campus sits on occupied land” and to recognize the “difficult, painful[,] and long history” associated with this state of affairs.
Land acknowledgments are sometimes recited at public events, and as more institutions have adopted them, they have become “the subject of myriad mainstream media articles, social media posts[,] and online videos” weighing in on their value.
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This debate is understandable, because “[a]fter millennia of Native history, and centuries of displacement and dispossession, acknowledging original Indigenous inhabitants is complex.”
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While proponents believe that land acknowledgments show respect and bring awareness to tribes and tribal issues, others have criticized land acknowledgments as “hollow gestures” which amount to mere “moral exhibitionism.”
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We of course take no position on this policy or societal debate. But we identify this disagreement to underscore that the wisdom and appropriateness of land acknowledgments is a matter of public concern and ongoing discussion. Testimony from UW officials in this case likewise reflects the present debate and controversy over the practice of land acknowledgments.
In 2019, the Allen School revised its “Best Practices for Inclusive Teaching” to recommend that instructors include an “Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” in their course syllabi. This document offered UW’s official land acknowledgment as an example, while making clear that its suggestions were “not prescriptions, ” but only “ideas” intended to help faculty be “more effective teacher[s] and better role model[s] for more of your students.”
Professor Reges viewed UW’s land acknowledgment, and the recommendation to include it in syllabi, as a political statement. Reges believes that land acknowledgments are part of “an agenda of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ that treats some groups of students as more deserving of recognition and welcome than others on account of their race or other immutable characteristic.” He therefore did not think it was appropriate for the Allen School to recommend the inclusion of this “political statement” in syllabi. Reges also disagreed with the factual premise of the land acknowledgment, as he believed that “most of the land currently occupied by UW was densely forested before the land was cleared to make way for the campus.” He thought the land acknowledgment expressed “that UW’s presence is somehow illegitimate, shameful, morally wrong, or unlawful,” and considered it “an empty, performative act of moralism” ripe for parody.
Reges was not alone in his skepticism. On December 8, 2021, another faculty member emailed UW’s “diversity- allies” and faculty mailing lists to share a “thought- provoking” article from The Atlantic (cited above) criticizing land acknowledgments. In a reply-all, Reges wrote that he had “been thinking a lot about land acknowledgments” and that he was considering including his own version of a land acknowledgment on his computer science syllabus next quarter, “because the Allen School lists this as a diversity best practice.” Reges’s reply included a draft of his own proposed land acknowledgement.
On January 3, 2022, the first day of UW’s Winter Quarter, Reges met with his Computer Science and Engineering 143: Computer Programming II (CSE 143) class in an online session. This introductory course is required for certain majors and included roughly 500 students. During the session, students accessed Reges’s syllabus, which contained the following statement: “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.” Although Reges briefly mentioned the statement during class, it appears most students did not notice it at the time.
The statement drew significant attention after class. Later that day, a student submitted a complaint expressing her concerns with the parody statement. She also mentioned that “[a]fter further research,” she had discovered Reges’s “Why Women Don’t Code” article, which the student had “not been able to fully read because it is very triggering.” The student wrote that she felt “intimidated” and unwelcome in Reges’s class and believed that she would not “be supported and led to be successful in this required course for my major.” On the same day, another student shared a screenshot of Reges’s land acknowledgment on Reddit, where it received significant criticism.
The Director of the Allen School, Professor Magdalena Balazinska, learned of Reges’s land acknowledgment on January 4, 2022, when a colleague forwarded her the Reddit thread. The statement was also brought to the school’s attention by its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) student committee. That committee emailed the school’s assistant director for DEI to complain about the inclusion of “this offensive language . . . in the intro-to-CS course, where students, including those from under-represented indigenous communities, first encounter CS and the Allen School culture.” The committee called for the statement to be removed from the syllabus and replaced “with a statement acknowledging the right of [indigenous] people to the land taken from them through years of colonialism.” The student DEI committee further charged that “Stuart Reges has repeatedly expressed prejudiced views where he has no right to do so” because of the Allen School’s failure to hold Reges and others accountable in the past.
Later that day, Balazinska emailed Reges asking him to remove the statement from his syllabus “immediately” because it was creating a “toxic environment” in a required course for the computer science major. Balazinska caveated that Reges was “welcome to voice your opinion and opposition to land acknowledgments, as you have, in other settings. ” In addition to sharing his draft statement with other faculty, Reges had included it in the signature block of some of his emails.
After Reges refused to remove the statement from his syllabus, Balazinska directed school IT staff to replace the online syllabus with a version excluding the statement. Balazinska and Professor Daniel Grossman, the Allen School’s Vice Director, also approved a tweet from the school’s Twitter account condemning the “offensive” statement and relaying that the school was “horrified” and working to replace Reges’s syllabus on the course website. In an email to other administrators, Balazinska also proposed asking Reges’s students to submit official complaints, which would “help[ ] us to take action.”
On January 5, 2022, Balazinska emailed the CSE 143 students to apologize for the “offensive” land acknowledgment, inform them that the statement had been removed from the syllabus, and encourage those who felt they had not been “treated fairly and respectfully” to submit a complaint via one of three linked reporting channels. In addition to verbal complaints, the record contains a set of thirteen written complaints made between January 3, 2022, and March 28, 2022.
These complaints were critical of Reges and his views. One student stated that “[t]his sort of factually wrong, intentionally inflammatory, and trauma-mocking statement tarnishes the reputation of the Allen School,” and that “[h]aving a professor like this, with a history of misogynistic and racist statements, and who places statements like this in their course policies,” was antithetical to creating an inclusive environment. This student further took issue with Reges’s reference to the labor theory of property, “a problematic theory of property rights,” and opined that “even using the problematic theory of property rights used here, this land still ought to belong to the Coast Salish peoples.”
Another student, who identified as Native, wrote that “this whole incident has made me feel so directly despised and unsafe that I’m certain if I hadn’t transferred in I wouldn’t be at the Paul Allen school right now.” A different student wrote that the Allen School should part ways with Reges because he “does not believe in present-day systematic racism or sexism, ideas that are core to improving our systems of education.” Similarly, the school’s Assistant Director for Diversity and Access reported that student ambassadors were struggling with “whether to be fully honest about their experiences at the Allen School” with prospective students, that some current students resented having to take CSE 143 with Reges, and that her staff felt undermined and disillusioned. The Assistant Director believed that “Stuart’s words have a very real negative impact on our entire community including staff.”
On January 7, 2022, the Allen School opened a second section of CSE 143 led by a different faculty member. Around 170 of Reges’s roughly 500 students transferred to the new section. After several students asked about grading policies for the new section, the professor leading it stated that he planned to use the same grading system as Reges.
The controversy over Reges’s mock land acknowledgment also attracted media attention. On January 6, 2022, Reges appeared on a local conservative talk show to discuss UW’s response to his land acknowledgment. Reges also published an opinion piece and gave interviews to the press, including to a student paper.
On February 23, 2022, Reges emailed UW’s “diversity- allies” mailing list to link an article covering the events in January surrounding his parody land acknowledgment. In his email, Reges also publicized his plans to “continue this protest when I teach the CSE142 course in spring and will have the opportunity to distribute a syllabus on paper (more difficult to censor).”
Reges’s post led to additional complaints. Citing the “emotional harm to students,” the school’s Recruiter for Diversity & Access asked how she could recruit Native students “into an environment where their history is questioned and their rights are denied.” For its part, the student employee union relayed that teaching assistants “no longer feel comfortable mentioning their own views on topics related to land acknowledgements and DEI, for fear of retaliation from Stuart Reges.” The union asked the school to “take prompt action” because Reges’s behavior violated the school’s commitment to inclusion and the non- discrimination and harassment provision of UW’s collective bargaining agreement.
On March 2, 2022, Balazinska informed Reges that she was initiating disciplinary process based on potential violations of the Faculty Code, university policy, and the collective bargaining agreement. She requested a meeting, at which she asked Reges to agree not to include his statement in any future syllabi. When Reges refused, Balazinska escalated the matter to Dean Nancy Allbritton, the head of the College of Engineering (which oversees the Allen School). Around this time, Reges posted a copy of his land acknowledgment outside his faculty office.
On April 21, 2022, Allbritton informed Reges that she was convening a special faculty committee to investigate potential violations of university policy. On October 14, 2022, the committee delivered an oral report to Allbritton finding that the parody statement had a “significant impact” on the “morale of Native American students, and their learning,” among other things, and that “[t]he level of disruption was extraordinary.” In addition to the discomfort and emotional harm that some students experienced, the committee reported that as a result of Reges’s statement, one Native student had taken a leave of absence, and another had dropped out. As we discuss below, the first student, who was not in Reges’s class, also gave other reasons for taking a leave of absence, including feeling “used” after meeting with Balazinska to discuss the student’s complaint and that the Allen School was excessively focused on testing. The record does not support the existence of the second student who reportedly dropped out.
Several months later, on June 13, 2023, Allbritton sent Reges a letter summarizing the committee’s findings and closing the investigation. The committee found that Reges had likely violated university policy and caused “significant disruption”—which included the one student who took a leave of absence and the other who supposedly dropped out. But Allbritton declined to impose sanctions because of the possibility that Reges’s “actions were intended to generate discussion.” Allbritton further observed that UW had not restricted Reges’s “ability to express your views or publicize your land acknowledgement statement outside the context of your course syllabus,” noting that Reges had shared his land acknowledgment through his email signature block and by posting it on his office door.
Nevertheless, Allbritton warned that if Reges included his land acknowledgment in future syllabi, “and if that inclusion leads to further disruption, I will have no option but to conclude that your intent is to cause deliberate offense and further that disruption” in violation of UW’s Executive Order 31 (EO-31) and the Faculty Code, and to “proceed with next steps.” EO-31, the university’s “Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action” policy, is directed at “the goal of promoting an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. ” It provides that UW may discipline “any conduct that is deemed unacceptable or inappropriate, regardless of whether the conduct rises to the level of unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.”
Allbritton’s letter also reinstated Reges’s merit pay increase, which had “been automatically held in abeyance pending this investigation in accordance with University policy” for academic years 2021–22 and 2022–23. Reges claims he had not previously been informed that he was approved for a merit increase or that it had been withheld during the disciplinary investigation.
On July 13, 2022, while he was still under investigation, Reges sued Director Balazinska, Vice Director Grossman, Dean Allbritton, and Ana Marie Cauce, UW’s President, raising claims of First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination. Reges also challenged EO-31 as facially overbroad and unconstitutionally vague. The defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and while that motion was pending, the parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The parties agreed that there were no material factual disputes and that summary judgment could be adjudicated.
The district court resolved the motion to dismiss and summary judgment motions together. The court first found that Reges had stated claims for First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination because he engaged in protected speech. The court reasoned that these claims were subject to balancing under Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), because Reges’s suit arose in the government employment context. Although the court found that Reges spoke on a matter of public concern, it granted summary judgment to defendants because, under Pickering, UW’s interest in mitigating disruption to university staff functions, teaching assistants, and the learning environment outweighed Reges’s First Amendment interests.
As evidence of disruption, the district court noted that students, including Native students, had reported feeling unwelcome and intimidated, and that 30% of Reges’s students had transferred to the new CSE 143 section. The court also relied on the faculty committee’s claim that one Native student dropped out. Although Reges objected to the faculty committee’s report on hearsay grounds, the court explained that it did not consider this evidence for the truth of the matter asserted, but as reflecting UW’s understanding of the disruption caused by Reges’s speech.
The district court also dismissed Reges’s overbreadth and vagueness challenges to EO-31 under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and denied leave to amend. The court rejected Reges’s position that EO-31’s restriction on “unacceptable or inappropriate” conduct was impermissibly open-ended and subjective, reasoning that EO-31 tied these terms to UW’s goal of “promoting an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.” The court construed EO-31 to reach conduct that “‘resemble[s]’ discrimination, harassment, or retaliation, even if not unlawful under employment laws. ” It concluded that by this construction, EO-31 was not overbroad or vague.
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Dean Albritton’s final letter to Reges referenced “[o]ne Native American student feeling compelled to take a leave of absence from the University” and “[o]ne Native American student feeling compelled to drop out of the University.” That two of the thousands of students at the University of Washington decided to leave the school likely would not qualify as materially disruptive under any circumstances. But even setting that aside, the two students in question are not compelling evidence of disruption.
The first student—who was not a student in Reges’s class—described other factors influencing the decision to take a leave of absence, including the lack of available tutoring services, the Allen School’s focus on testing, and feeling “used” after meeting with Balazinska to discuss Reges. UW also could not explain whether this student’s mental health problems began with or pre-dated Reges’s speech. The dissent references student “absences” and notes that “students cannot be educated when they are absent.” But the absence of this single student who did not even take Reges’s course is the only absence the dissent identifies.
As for the second student, it appears undisputed that this student does not exist. UW claims that whether the second student existed is “irrelevant,” apparently because it believed the student had dropped out. UW identifies nothing in the record to support the reasonableness of this belief. But suffice it to say, the university cannot justify retaliating against Reges based on phantom evidence of disruption.
UW’s other assertions of disruption are similarly unsupported. It is speculative whether the university faced or would face difficulties recruiting Native students because of a statement on Reges’s Winter 2022 computer science syllabus. UW has supplied no concrete evidence supporting this speculation. See Nichols v. Dancer, 657 F.3d 929, 933– 34 (9th Cir. 2011) (“[A]n employer cannot prevail under Pickering based on mere speculation that an employee’s conduct will cause disruption.”). The complaint from the Allen School’s Recruiter for Diversity & Access likewise provides no specifics on how Reges’s statement impacted recruiting and instead reflects bare disagreement with Reges’s views and the “emotional harm” they caused. It provides no support for UW’s theory that Reges’s class syllabus land acknowledgment materially harmed the Allen School’s efforts to recruit Native students. There is also no factual support for any allegation that Reges would “target” Native American students and disadvantage them in their education, or that he would retaliate against teaching assistants. Nor can we say that such disruption was reasonably predictable, Dodge, 56 F.4th at 782, when Reges spoke about his land acknowledgment in other contexts— including in other syllabi—and there is no indication that disruption ensued.
Similarly, although UW points out that roughly 170 of Reges’s 500 students switched to the new section of CSE 143, the record does not indicate why they did so. While it is true that these students were informed that the grading system would not change for this alternative section, the new instructor had a preexisting reputation for more lenient grading and a different lecture style. The record also does not reveal whether these students would have dropped Reges’s course if the new section were not offered. There are many reasons why students would leave one class for another, including general dislike for the professor (or, as may be the case here, his expression of other unpopular views that UW does not claim are unprotected). None of this demonstrates disruption sufficient to justify limiting or punishing Reges’s academic speech. On this record, there is a shortage of evidence that Reges’s syllabus statement “was the source of” students switching to another class. Bauer, 261 F.3d at 785. Nor is there evidence that Reges’s land acknowledgment affected the quality of his classroom instruction or denied educational benefits to his students.
Finally, UW’s assertions of disruption are significantly undermined by the fact that defendants permitted Reges to express the same views about land acknowledgments in other settings, such as on his office door, his email signature, and in interviews with the media. As UW acknowledges, Reges has also included his mock land acknowledgment statement in all syllabi after Winter 2022, with far less incident.
Although defendants tout Reges’s other speech about land acknowledgments as evidence that UW has given Reges beneficent leeway, Reges’s other speech only raises further questions as to why a statement on one syllabus would prove so disruptive as to warrant an extensive investigation into Reges. UW maintains that it acted only as to the Winter 2022 syllabus statement because that statement, in particular, proved disruptive. But First Amendment protection that rises and falls depending on how upset students become at a professor’s message is little protection at all.
last updated 01/21/2026