Land acknowledgments are among the most vacuous ideological fads to sweep American universities in recent years. They appeared suddenly—roughly seven or eight years ago—and spread rapidly, because they offered institutions an easy way to advertise political virtue.

They purport to express sensitivity to Native American tribes on whose land universities now sit—allegedly. In practice, they are empty rituals. In many cases, there was no expropriation at all. Even where land changed hands through war or treaty centuries ago, today’s institutions bear no meaningful moral obligation to the people who once inhabited that territory. Universities did not commit those acts, cannot undo them, and certainly do not rectify them through scripted statements recited at ceremonies or printed on syllabi. But administrators embrace land acknowledgments precisely because they cost nothing, require no sacrifice, and create the appearance of moral seriousness without demanding any action.

That is also why the recent court ruling in favor of Stuart Reges matters.

The dispute arose at the University of Washington (UW) in 2022, when faculty were encouraged to include an official land acknowledgment on their syllabi. Reges, a longtime computer science professor, declined to repeat the boilerplate. Instead, he substituted it with a single sentence invoking John Locke’s labor theory of property: “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.”

The sentence was satirical, but the point was serious. Land acknowledgments are not neutral statements of fact. They are meant to “set the tone for a course,” as Reges later put it, by indicating which political views are acceptable. That, not historical instruction, is their real function.

UW’s response confirmed exactly what Reges was criticizing. Administrators altered his syllabus, apologized to students for his dissent, created a parallel course section so students could avoid him, and subjected him to a prolonged investigation.

In July 2022, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Reges filed suit. This year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in his favor, holding that student discomfort is not a legitimate basis for punishing faculty speech.

The legal victory is welcome, but there is a broader lesson to be learned from this story. 

Reges acted on an impulse many faculty share but few act on. Most comply with land acknowledgments because they understand the costs of resistance. Reges’s experience shows how dissent is handled: administrative pressure, procedural harassment, and warnings about future consequences. These rituals persist not because they withstand scrutiny, but because they depend on compliance.

Reges tested that arrangement. The reaction he provoked explains why so few others bother to do the same.

Follow Jared Gould and the National Association of Scholars on X.