‘Give them the school back’: Jake challenges UW to back up its land acknowledgments after $600K payout

The University of Washington (UW) has agreed to pay $600,000 as a settlement in the lawsuit initiated by Professor Stuart Reges following a decision that found the UW administrators had breached his First Amendment rights by engaging in retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.

The settlement, which was announced by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), stops the university from taking any further action against Reges or deleting the parody statement from his syllabi.

The controversy started in 2022 when the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering urged its professors to put a land acknowledgment on their syllabi. However, Reges stated that, according to the labor theory of property, the tribes had ‘almost no historical claim to the land which is now occupied by the University of Washington’. The university censored his syllabus, set up an alternative version of his course, and launched an inquiry that lasted for nearly a year.

Jake Skorheim and Spike O’Neill, co-hosts of “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, both sided with Reges and used the story to question whether land acknowledgments accomplish anything at all.

Jake says $600K speaks louder than a denial

Jake pointed to the settlement amount as evidence that UW knows it was in the wrong, regardless of its public statements.

“I would suggest that the five zeros after the six would suggest that they are somewhat in the wrong,” Jake said. “Otherwise, why write that check?”

He noted that UW still refuses to admit any wrongdoing, which Spike found equally telling.

“In this hand, you can have an admission of guilt and an apology. In this hand is $600,000, but you can only have one,” Spike said. “I think five zeros go a long way to say, ‘I’m sorry, and I was wrong.'”

Jake challenges UW to follow through on land acknowledgments

Jake said the broader issue isn’t whether Reges was right to parody the statement; it’s that the university treats land acknowledgments as performances rather than commitments.

“I have sat in school meetings where they start with one of these things, and I just think to myself, literally as a taxpayer in the district, give them the school back. Give them the land,” Jake said. “If you’re going to acknowledge that you stole something, if I stole a phone, I would give that phone back.”

Spike connected it to his own story of returning a briefcase full of cash.

“I gave it back to the man who lost it,” Spike said. “But only when he knocked on my door. I didn’t go door-to-door saying, ‘Hey, did you lose a whole bunch of cash?'”

Jake suggested someone should knock on UW’s door.

“Maybe somebody should go knock on UW’s door and say, ‘You’ve acknowledged countless times that this is stolen. May we have it back, please?'” Jake said. “See what UW says.”

Spike asked how many indigenous scholarships UW offers as part of its acknowledgment. Jake said if the university really believes what it’s saying, funding education for indigenous students would be a start.

“Acknowledgment is nice,” Spike said, “but it’s not as nice as paying for an education.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3