Land acknowledgement is one of the hot new trends in wokeland. Deviating from this is not allowed.
From the FIRE blog:
University of Washington: Professor created ‘toxic environment’ by deviating from university-approved language about Native American landIf professors at the University of Washington want to include a statement of land acknowledgment on their syllabi, they must parrot the administration’s viewpoint or shut up.It has become increasingly common in academia to promote statements that formally recognize indigenous ties to the land occupied by a university, but the UW Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering encourages professors to include a land acknowledgement on their syllabi at the expense of their First Amendment rights.Professor Stuart Reges learned this the hard way when a land acknowledgement on his syllabus was censored by administrators because it didn’t match a university-approved statement. Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called on UW to ensure that faculty, if they choose to address this topic in their syllabi, can use the university’s statement or craft their own.“UW pays lip service to inclusivity, but censorship is incompatible with inclusivity,” said FIRE Program Officer Zach Greenberg, who wrote today’s letter to UW. “UW needs to re-evaluate its list of ‘best practices for inclusive courses’ in light of its tolerance for viewpoint discrimination.”On the list, the Allen School includes an “Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” statement. The list notes that the provided statement is “an example,” suggesting that the university intends it to be a starting point that can be adapted, not a rigid take-it-or-leave-it statement. The fact that the statement could be adapted seemed clear – until a professor wrote one that administrators didn’t like.On Dec. 8, Reges criticized land acknowledgment statements in an email to faculty and included a modified statement he put in his syllabus: “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.” Reges’s statement was a nod to Locke’s philosophical theory that property rights are established by improving land.“I decided to see whether it was acceptable to present an alternate viewpoint,” said Reges. “Obviously their version of diversity does not include conservative viewpoints.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY