The University of Washington violated the First Amendment by punishing a professor who put a parody "land acknowledgment" on his syllabus after the university suggested faculty tell students that it took the land next to Lake Washington from an indigenous tribe, a federal appeals court ruled, as oral argument had predicted.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a lower court to enter summary judgment for computer science instructor Stuart Reges on his First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination claims and determine "appropriate relief" for the award-winning instructor, whose fortunes changed following his 2018 essay "Why Women Don't Code" and even got assaulted for recording an anti-Israel encampment at UW last year.

"UW was free to ask Reges to consider removing his parody statement," the majority opinion by Judge Daniel Bress, nominated by President Trump, says. "But its ensuing conduct—which included opening a lengthy disciplinary investigation (during which a merit pay increase was withheld), reprimanding Reges, and threatening him with further discipline—plainly qualifies as adverse employment action under our precedents."

His syllabus is clearly not government speech, as UW argued, because he was speaking in his own capacity as faculty and "unquestionably spoke on a matter of public concern ... both within the UW community and more broadly," the opinion says. 

"Reges’s speech, however misguided one might regard it, was core political speech that merits the highest First Amendment protection," and even UW recognized its "apparent value" because administrators permitted him to "post the statement on his office door and in his email signature, to discuss it with colleagues, and to give interviews expressing his views about land acknowledgments and UW’s reaction," Bress wrote.

"Student discomfort with a professor’s views can prompt discussion and disapproval," the judge said. "But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor."

In a partial dissent, President Clinton-nominated Judge Sidney Thomas disputed that Reges's speech interests outweighed UW's interests in protecting its students. 

"This University, like other universities in the American West, has a particular obligation to its Native students," Thomas wrote. "The disruption Reges’s speech caused to Native students’ learning outweighed his own First Amendment interests."

Reges mocked land acknowledgments as "performative acts of conformity" in a statement by his lawyers at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

"In my 39 years of teaching, I have always fought for free speech even though it nearly cost me my dream job," said Reges, who as a student activist got in trouble for advocating for gay rights and drug legalization. "I hope my victory will help inspire others to push back against those who have been attempting to limit free speech on college campuses."

"The Ninth Circuit agreed with what FIRE has said from the beginning: Universities can’t force professors to parrot an institution’s preferred political views under pain of punishment," FIRE lawyer Gabe Walters said.

He told Just the News that FIRE doesn't have to overcome qualified immunity because UW didn't defend the case on the basis that its administrators have legal immunity. Reges’s rights are "clearly established by law" and he will "continue to seek damages as the case moves forward," Walters said.