Professors who seek to mock the political orthodoxy of their institutions without retaliation got good news this week, as the University of Washington paid $600,000 to settle four-year litigation by a computer science instructor who got in trouble for putting a satirical "land acknowledgment" in his syllabus.

The taxpayer-funded institution, which had encouraged faculty to put its own statement in their syllabi, also agreed to let Stuart Reges insert his version "in perpetuity." It reads: "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 settlement prohibits UW from not only investigating or withholding salary increases from Reges because of his parody or complaints about it, as it had done before, but also "creating competing or 'shadow' sections of his courses." A third of students left Reges's mandatory intro class for a Reges-free version UW created in response to his parody.

It's at least the second six-figure settlement this summer stemming from 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings against enforced orthodoxy in public higher education. 

California's Kern Community College District paid $150,000 in attorney's fees in July to a history professor who challenged its "diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility" mandates on his curriculum and performance reviews.

The settlement also prohibits KCCD from "investigating, disciplining, or terminating" Daymon Johnson for his "proposed social or political speech," except for Johnson's "official speech as a member of the Bakersfield College Equal Opportunity & Diversity Advisory Committee." The federal court will oversee the permanent injunction order for five years.

UW investigated Reges for a year and threatened to punish him if he posted the parody again, but ditched the underlying "antiharassment" policy as Reges's appeal was pending, protecting other faculty from similar inquisitions, his lawyers at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said.

"The livelihoods of professors shouldn’t be at the mercy of student or administrator outrage, and this ruling will help protect other professors across the country," FIRE attorney Gabe Walters said. "I hope that my protest can help reverse a decade-long trend towards ideological conformity in academia," Reges said.

The historically liberal and overturned 9th Circuit slapped down UW nine months ago for First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination against Reges, including "opening a lengthy disciplinary investigation (during which a merit pay increase was withheld), reprimanding Reges, and threatening him with further discipline."

The university "maintains that we acted appropriately" but settled to avoid spending more in attorney's fees and costs, UW told local tech publication GeekWire, emphasizing the 9th Circuit panel was split 2-1. "Prof. Reges has retained his faculty position and continued teaching throughout this process, and his status with the UW remains unchanged.”

The settlement doesn't break down exactly how the $600,000 payment is split among "damages, attorney's fees and costs" — how much Reges gets versus his lawyers. Walters told Just the News "we’re not at liberty to disclose the terms of our client agreements" but that nothing stopped Reges from sharing that information.

Johnson's legal journey was more winding than Reges's. The 9th Circuit reinstated his lawsuit a year before the settlement, overruling a district judge who himself overruled a magistrate judge who recommended a preliminary injunction on KCCD's enforcement of California's DEIA regulations, which Johnson's criticism of "cultural Marxism" plausibly violated.

U.S. District Judge Kirk Sheriff approved a preliminary injunction in February that the settlement largely follows, including that Johnson must take DEIA training to serve on faculty screening committees and that he's not immune for "official speech" on the EODAC.

That committee has been the setting for a years-long tug-of-war between faculty associated with competing right- and left-leaning think tanks at Bakersfield College.

Johnson's litigation stems from KCCD's crusade against his history colleague Matthew Garrett, whose leadership in the Renegade Institute for Liberty and questioning of the college's social justice spending put him in the cross hairs of administrators seven years ago.

KCCD officially charged Garrett with "dishonesty" for disagreeing with colleagues and the board secretly voted to fire him, producing a $2.4 million settlement for Garrett two years ago. After he took over RIFL from Garrett, Johnson endured a five-month investigation.

"Professor Johnson spent years fighting for the First Amendment right that every American professor should take for granted: the right to teach honestly, think freely, and speak his mind without being forced to endorse a government-approved belief system," Institute for Free Speech Vice President for Litigation Alan Gura said. 

Johnson expressed gratitude for the end of three years of "being mandated to value and promote DEI with its neo-Marxist understanding of race, grievance, identity politics, and cloaked affirmative action."

The Independent Women's Forum profiled Johnson after his settlement. "I’m in a fortunate position because I’m later in my career. I can retire anytime if I had wanted to," which is "a lot more difficult" for younger colleagues with families, he said.