On December 19, 2025, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed down Reges v. Cauce, No. 24-3518, reversing summary judgment for the University of Washington and holding that the university violated the First Amendment when it investigated and disciplined a professor for declining to recite its official land acknowledgment. The professor, Stuart Reges, a Teaching Professor at UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, wrote his own competing statement in his syllabus instead. The university opened a formal disciplinary investigation, ordered the statement scrubbed from his course page, and left the threat of sanction hanging over him for years. The Ninth Circuit has now said that campaign was unconstitutional retaliation, reversing and remanding for further proceedings.
Why a Speech Case Is a Second Amendment Story
I write primarily about the right to keep and bear arms, and I make no apology for a day on a First Amendment case. The two rights are not separable. We defend the Second Amendment with words, and every one of those words is protected, or not, by the First Amendment. A citizenry punishable for an unpopular view on one subject can just as easily be punished for an unpopular view on gun rights. The Bill of Rights is an integrated architecture, each provision reinforcing the others against the same enemy. Reges v. Cauce is a First Amendment case, but its logic — that the state may not retaliate against a citizen for a disfavored viewpoint on a matter of public concern — is the same logic protecting gun owners who speak up.
A Parody the University Could Not Tolerate
In 2019, the Allen School began recommending instructors open their syllabi with an “Indigenous Land Acknowledgement,” offering as a model UW’s official language acknowledging that the campus sits on land touching the shared waters of the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations. On January 3, 2022, Reges gave his roughly 500 students in Computer Programming II a different statement, per the Ninth Circuit’s own recitation of 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.”
That is a direct invocation of John Locke’s labor theory of property — the same natural-law tradition running through the Declaration of Independence that underwrites the pre-political character of the right to keep and bear arms. Reges disagreed, in his own words, on a matter of live public debate. Dean Nancy Allbritton’s faculty committee investigated and, on June 13, 2023, found he had “likely violated university policy” under UW’s Executive Order 31, its nondiscrimination policy, though it declined to impose formal sanctions.
The Heckler’s Veto
A doctrine connects this case to how the First Amendment protects controversial speakers generally: the heckler’s veto. Government cannot justify silencing a speaker because his message might provoke objection or protest from others. Letting an offended audience dictate who may speak turns the First Amendment inside out — the loudest objectors, not the Constitution, end up setting the boundaries of permissible speech. That is what happened at UW: students and faculty objected, the university investigated and threatened discipline, and Reges was pressured to withdraw and apologize. He refused, and sued Ana Mari Cauce, in her official capacity as UW’s president, along with Allen School and College of Engineering leadership, in the Western District of Washington.
What the Ninth Circuit Actually Held
Judge Daniel A. Bress, joined by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., wrote for the majority, applying the Pickering balancing test governing discipline of a public employee for speech on a matter of public concern. The panel held Reges’s speech interest outweighed UW’s asserted interests and that the university’s conduct was retaliatory. Judge Sidney R. Thomas filed a partial concurrence and partial dissent: he agreed Pickering supplied the correct framework but would have struck the balance the other way, and disagreed with reviving Reges’s facial vagueness challenge to EO-31.
The majority did not mince words about what is at stake when a public university punishes disfavored speech:
“The public university occupies a central place in the law of the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects the free exchange of ideas. The university is a primary generator and repository of ideas, a place in which unfettered academic debate and open discourse promotes the search for truth and prepares students for a discordant world lacking in orthodoxy. When we place limits on what professors may say or impose punishment for the views they express, we destock the marketplace of ideas and imperil future generations who must be exposed to a range of ideas and readied for the disharmony of a democratic society.”
And in summarizing its holding:
“A public university investigated, reprimanded, and threatened to discipline a professor for contentious statements he made in a class syllabus. The statements, which mocked the university’s model syllabus statement on an issue of public concern, caused offense in the university community. Yet debate and disagreement are hallmarks of higher education. Student discomfort with a professor’s views can prompt discussion and disapproval. But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor. We hold that the university’s actions toward the professor violated his First Amendment rights. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.”
An Unfinished Victory, and a Larger Lesson
This is a reversal and remand, not a final judgment. The district court must still enter summary judgment for Reges and decide whether EO-31 is unconstitutionally vague on its face. But the principle is complete: a public university cannot weaponize an investigation to punish a professor for a lawful, dissenting view on a contested public question. It protects the professor who mocks a land acknowledgment today and the citizen who speaks up for the right to keep and bear arms tomorrow. The marketplace of ideas works only if government is barred from thumbing the scale.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.