EDITORIAL: Higher education needs a refresher on free speech

At Republicans’ recent midterm convention, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, began his remarks with his own version of a land acknowledgment.

“I’d like to acknowledge that we stand here today in the great state of Texas and the United States of America is the ancestral homeland of great American patriots, pioneers and explorers who put down roots, fight for freedom all over the globe and bled and died to build the greatest civilization ever known to man,” Mr. Gill said.

The crowd roared its approval for Mr. Gill’s parody. But if he had been working at a taxpayer-funded university, he likely would have received a different response. Just ask Professor Stuart Reges.

Mr. Reges is a computer science professor at the University of Washington, which is a publicly funded institution. A few years ago, the school encouraged professors to put indigenous land acknowledgments in their course syllabi.

Those generally don’t sound anything like what Mr. Gill said. UNLV’s land acknowledgment statement says the school “wishes to acknowledge and honor the Indigenous communities of this region, and recognize that the university is situated on the traditional homelands of the Nuwu (noo·woo), Southern Paiute (pai·oot) People.

“We offer gratitude for the land itself, for those who have stewarded it for generations, and for the opportunity to study, learn, work, and be in community with this land.”

Mr. Reges wasn’t interested in following the herd. Instead of simply ignoring the directive, in 2022, he published a parody of what UW had in mind. University bigwigs weren’t amused. The school launched an investigation. It censored his syllabus and apologized to his students. The school even created a different version of his class, so students didn’t have to learn from him.

The university’s reaction would be funny — in response to a parody, UW turned into a parody version of a woke college — if the issue weren’t so serious. Universities once prided themselves on defending free speech. Now, many crack down on any who dare to deviate from progressive orthodoxy. There isn’t a market for this foolishness, but colleges receive substantial subsidies from taxpayers.

With the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Mr. Reges sued. Instead of apologizing, UW contested the issue. It was joined by several other public universities in Washington state.

Fortunately, after a years-long court battle, the Ninth Circuit upheld Mr. Reges’ First Amendment rights. UW recently agreed to pay him $600,000 for its actions, although it still won’t acknowledge that it did anything wrong.

Public universities should skip land acknowledgments and make sure that administrators acknowledge the Constitution.