The University of Washington, located in Seattle, is one of the nation’s flagship institutions of public learning. Popularly known as U-Dub, the campus boasts a 703-acre campus with over 500 buildings and 26 libraries—and also some of the most fascistic policies to be seen in higher education.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a non-profit organization that defends free speech and free thought in American society with a particular emphasis on college campuses, has given the University of Washington its most severe rating of “Red” which is given only to universities that have “at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”

While several of the university’s conduct policies are problematic, FIRE flags “Executive Order No. 31: Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action” as being particularly flagrant in violating the right to free speech. That policy claims as its goal the promotion of “an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation” and states that “To facilitate that goal, the University retains the authority to discipline or take appropriate corrective action for any conduct that is deemed unacceptable or inappropriate, regardless of whether the conduct rises to the level of unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.”

Thus, according to the language of the university’s own policy, UW freely admits to policing and prohibiting lawful, constitutionally protected speech, a clear violation of the First Amendment from the publicly-funded institution.

The disciplinary charges associated with violating U-Dub’s policies are far from theoretical. Computer Science Professor Stuart Reges found this out firsthand when he challenged one the university’s “best practices” developed by the campus diversity office which urged faculty to include an assertion in each course syllabus “to acknowledge that our campus sits on occupied land.” 

The University of Washington, located in Seattle, is one of the nation’s flagship institutions of public learning. Popularly known as U-Dub, the campus boasts a 703-acre campus with over 500 buildings and 26 libraries—and also some of the most fascistic policies to be seen in higher education.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a non-profit organization that defends free speech and free thought in American society with a particular emphasis on college campuses, has given the University of Washington its most severe rating of “Red” which is given only to universities that have “at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”

While several of the university’s conduct policies are problematic, FIRE flags “Executive Order No. 31: Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action” as being particularly flagrant in violating the right to free speech. That policy claims as its goal the promotion of “an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation” and states that “To facilitate that goal, the University retains the authority to discipline or take appropriate corrective action for any conduct that is deemed unacceptable or inappropriate, regardless of whether the conduct rises to the level of unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.”

Thus, according to the language of the university’s own policy, UW freely admits to policing and prohibiting lawful, constitutionally protected speech, a clear violation of the First Amendment from the publicly-funded institution.

The disciplinary charges associated with violating U-Dub’s policies are far from theoretical. Computer Science Professor Stuart Reges found this out firsthand when he challenged one the university’s “best practices” developed by the campus diversity office which urged faculty to include an assertion in each course syllabus “to acknowledge that our campus sits on occupied land.” 

Reges openly stated his disagreement with land acknowledgement statements in an email to faculty last December. When he prepared the syllabus for his upcoming course beginning in January 2022, he included a modified version of UW’s suggested statement, reading“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.” As FIRE notes on their website, “Reges’s statement was a nod to John Locke’s philosophical theory that property rights are established by labor.”

But university officials were not amused. Just one day after releasing the syllabus, the director of the computer science department, Magdalena Balazinska, ordered Reges to immediately remove the modified land use statement from his syllabus, claiming it was “inappropriate” and “offensive” and created “a toxic environment.”  When Reges refused to remove the statement, U-Dub launched an official investigation to determine whether the professor’s conduct violated its harassment policy—that same policy that earned them a “red light” rating from FIRE. The Computer Science Department head, Balinska, also created a new course to compete with the one Reges was already teaching, featuring pre-recorded lectures from another professor.

At the time of this writing, Reges remains a subject of U-Dub’s investigation, which has continued for more than five months. In July, backed by FIRE, he filed a lawsuit against the university for violating his academic freedom and free speech rights.

Other faculty at the university may soon have even more cause to fear for their livelihoods if they dare to dissent from progressive orthodoxy. Last March, UW’s Faculty Council on Race, Equity, and Justice submitted a proposed amendment to the faculty senate, which would have mandated that faculty up for tenure or promotion submit a statement in which they “reflect on past and planned contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the self-assessment of their qualifications for tenure or promotion.” The new requirement would essentially force faculty to pledge their allegiance to the leftwing “anti-racism” narrative if they hold any hope of future employment.

The faculty senate voted to pass the amendment, but the full faculty voted it down. The amendment’s failure to pass is a victory for academic freedom, but it is unlikely to satisfy the U-Dub radicals who have been pushing for such a policy for the past ten years. Nor will it help “new faculty applicants” who have been required since 2021 to “submit a statement on contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” essentially creating a leftwing litmus test for all new faculty hires.

Cancel culture at U-Dub does not only affect the faculty—recent incidents have shown it extends to students as well. This past May, the Black Student Union on campus held a rally to remove a statue of George Washington—our nation’s first president and the university’s namesake—from campus, on the grounds that he was “an enslaver of men.”  The inconvenient fact that Washington freed his slaves upon his death—a remarkable act for the times he lived in—was not part of the dialogue. The student activists also called for the abolition of the police.

For maintaining clearly unconstitutional speech codes and using them to punish free speech and dissent, the University of Washington belongs on the list of most fascist universities.