Stuart Reges is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington’s (UW). In 2015, UW adopted an acknowledgement stating that certain indigenous peoples lived on the land where UW is located. UW recommended that instructors include UW’s “Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” in their course syllabi.
As a parody on UW’s recommendation, Reges stated in his syllabus that indigenous groups could claim ownership of “almost none” of the land that UW occupied. The statement sparked student complaints and media attention. UW initiated an internal disciplinary investigation. An UW administrator emailed Reges asking him to remove the statement from his syllabus “immediately” because it was creating a “toxic environment.” The administrator invited Reges to voice his opposition to the land acknowledgement in other contexts. Reges then posted his land acknowledgment on his email signature block and on his office door.
An administrator wrote Reges a letter to close the investigation, and inform him that the committee found that he had likely violated UW’s EO policy and caused “significant disruption.” The letter warned Reges not to include his land acknowledgement in his future syllabi or UW would proceed with the next steps. The letter noted that Reges’s merit pay would be released to him now that the investigation was concluded.
Reges sued UW officials under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, alleging First Amendment retaliation, and other challenges to UW’s EO policy. The district court granted UW summary judgment, finding that although Reges spoke on a matter of public concern, UW’s interests in preventing disruption outweighed his speech interests.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. First, the Court rejected UW’s argument that Reges’s parody land acknowledgment was not protected speech. UW had argued that because professors were required to distribute syllabi, Reges’s syllabus did not relate to his own scholarship or teaching, and should instead be considered “government speech” that UW could rightfully control. The Court held that Reges was speaking in his own capacity as a professor in his syllabus, and not on behalf of UW. The Court noted that UW syllabi were largely controlled by faculty and that academic freedom occupies a “special niche” under the First Amendment law.
Second, the Court found that Reges alleged an adverse employment action based upon UW’s actions to: open a disciplinary investigation (during which his merit pay increase was withheld); reprimand him; and threaten him with further discipline. As a result, Reges had stated a prima facie claim for protected speech.
The Court further held that UW could not defeat Reges’s First Amendment claim under the Pickering balancing test because UW could not show sufficient disruption to its legitimate administrative interests. Although students expressed distress, transferred sections, and complained, that discomfort and disagreement are inevitable features of academic discourse and cannot justify suppressing controversial viewpoints. The Court also found that UW’s evidence of disruption was speculative or unsupported.
Finally, the Court revived Reges’s facial overbreadth and vagueness challenges to UW’s EO policy. The Court explained that EO policy’s prohibition on “unacceptable or inappropriate” conduct extended beyond unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. The case was remanded for further proceedings and determination of appropriate relief.
Reges v. Cauce, No. 24-3518 (9th Cir. May 14, 2026).