A professor has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Washington (UW), which censored him for disagreeing with the idea that the university campus sits on “occupied land” belonging to a native tribe.
Located in Seattle, UW is one of the many U.S. colleges and universities that promote “land acknowledgment” statements that recognize indigenous peoples as the original owners of the land upon which their campuses are built.
On a list of “best practices,” the public university’s computer science department recommends that professors include such a statement in their syllabi “to acknowledge that our campus sits on occupied land” that was once owned by the Coast Salish, a collective term for indigenous tribes living in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon….