A University of Washington computer science professor claims his First Amendment rights have been violated after he was punished for his dissenting view on historic claims Native Americans have to the campus land, according to a lawsuit filed in Seattle federal court.
Stuart Reges, 63, who teaches an introductory course to computer programing, broke ranks with the university administration’s ‘indigenous land acknowledgment statement,’ which holds that the Coastal Salish people, a native tribe, have historic claims to campus land.
In Reges’s syllabus for his course, he wrote, ‘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.’
