The Fora: A Higher Education Community

This article is the most popular ones in IHE today, still about 6 weeks since it was published
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/23/professors-land-acknowledgment-sparks-controversy

It's a good example of liberal attempts to acknowledge  past wrongdoing vs others dissenting views and some resisting administration pressures to conform to a party-line ideology.

Personally I find land acknowledgments problematic because if a university really believes it is on stolen land, it should give it back. Saying "we are on stolen land and we feel really bad about it but there it is" doesn't sound very convincing.

I guess I experience a land acknowledgement about every couple of months. Are they a fad? When did they start?

Every church and liturgical function I attend online, and most historic academic conference papers I've heard do this as a matter of course.

I make a point of identifying myself as near a known Native American settlement whose fishing weirs were once 6 blocks from my home.

But I've been conscious of Native American land loss since I was very young. I was born in the Smoky Mountains, our family visited many historic sites in NC, OH, and elsewhere, and from the age of 8 I recall having very strong feelings about the significance of Logan Elm as a place of loss and dismemberment of native holdings.

Where I live now, when giving tours and talks, whether for children or adults, I don't start with the first English arrivants but with those who lived here before them, about whom a fair bit has been known for a long time. Teaching courses, one must discuss the many-sided altercations that erupted as those arrivants pressed their advantage and created false-flag excuses for attack, as well as disputes fueled by external bad actors who distributed knives to other, more outlying native societies, encouraging them to further bloodshed.

It's only responsible, as an honest historical guide and teacher, to do so. And I've done so for 30 years--I don't see it as something 'political,' or as a 'recent fad,' but something to do with ongoing historical accuracy.

I can't speak for others, but from my perspective, it's heartfelt.

M.

Land acknowledgements have become increasingly common in Canada as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action, and are fairly common in New Zealand. I imagine that their increased presence in the US is largely a trickle-down effect from the north.

As I see it, the point of land acknowledgements by public institutions is the recognition of historical wrongdoing (their point in Indigenous societies, and by individuals, is different). In Canada, in particular, the law requires treaties with Indigenous peoples for the use of their land, but nevertheless 65% of the country isn't covered by treaties (and it's not just the bush--that includes major urban areas, like Vancouver and the lower mainland of BC). Subsequent case law has established aboriginal title over that land. So there's a serious legal tension undergirding it all, and it's rooted in a long-standing (and ongoing) historical harm. Nor is it ancient history, since the Crown routinely flouts its duty to consult before undertaking projects on title (and disputed) land.

Think of apologies. A genuine apology acknowledges the harm someone has caused. That's the very first step. We deride non-apologies precisely because they don't do so (e.g. it's particularly popular to hedge with a conditional, as in, "I'm sorry if I offended anyone"). As I see it, land acknowledgements fulfill that function. They also fulfill an educational function, because it is not widely known that various places exist on stolen land (which, again, is technically illegal under Canadian law). The kids today know it, because they learned about it in school. But we didn't, and I'm not even that old. Remember, also, that the last residential school here closed in 1997.

So: as I see it, the purpose of a land acknowledgement is to prepare the ground for a genuine apology, and for moving forward productively. How and where we move forward from a land acknowledgement is, of course, a complex matter. But it's not all that different from how we respond to apologies. Some apologies are hollow non-apologies, and those aren't productive. Some are just pro-forma, and those aren't productive either. But when we receive a genuine apology, we can begin the process of moving forward.


As for this shithead, he's a total dickweed. And his understanding of Locke on property is superficial at best. If you're going to be an asshole, you should at least strive to be right. But when you can't even make your asshole point properly, it's just another sad performance of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He should stick to his day-job, and remember Lincoln's adage: it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 08:46:08 AM

Personally I find land acknowledgments problematic because if a university really believes it is on stolen land, it should give it back. Saying "we are on stolen land and we feel really bad about it but there it is" doesn't sound very convincing.

It's also a bit odd when multiple groups are acknowledged, when the archaeological evidence shows that they were there centuries apart, so that some of the groups abandoned the area long before the Europeans arrived. It seems like "acknowledging" all of the previous owners of a house, because some time ago they lived here, and eventually left for some reason or another.

Except there's a paper trail of the deeds-of-purchase for the house, which had to have been paid for in each instance, including the latest.

M. 

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 09:18:15 AM
Except there's a paper trail of the deeds-of-purchase for the house, which had to have been paid for in each instance, including the latest.

M.

But as I pointed out, indigenous groups who had not occupied the land for centuries before the Europeans arrived did not have their land "stolen". (Or if they did, it was by the later indigenous groups. )

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 09:20:24 AM

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 09:18:15 AM
Except there's a paper trail of the deeds-of-purchase for the house, which had to have been paid for in each instance, including the latest.

M.

But as I pointed out, indigenous groups who had not occupied the land for centuries before the Europeans arrived did not have their land "stolen". (Or if they did, it was by the later indigenous groups. )

Reading for nuance, please note the bolded text. I took your meaning, that's why I said that.

M. 

Agreed, land acknowledgements are not about the university stealing land or committing actual wrongdoing. They simply acknowledge that the land has a history, some of which is violent. As an historian, I think its about recognizing that land is never empty and we were never the first to occupy it. Space has a history that impacts those who inhabit it. We do this in Europe - I can give you a whole list of the peoples that occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why shouldn't we do it in the US?
I don't think land acknowledgements are controversial or leftist. They're just accurate.

Quote from: artalot on April 06, 2022, 09:25:46 AM
Agreed, land acknowledgements are not about the university stealing land or committing actual wrongdoing. They simply acknowledge that the land has a history, some of which is violent. As an historian, I think its about recognizing that land is never empty and we were never the first to occupy it. Space has a history that impacts those who inhabit it. We do this in Europe - I can give you a whole list of the peoples that occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why shouldn't we do it in the US?
I don't think land acknowledgements are controversial or leftist. They're just accurate.

But you don't start every meeting in the UK mentioning all the peoples who occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why not? Some (most?) of those changes involved lots of violence.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 09:33:23 AM

Quote from: artalot on April 06, 2022, 09:25:46 AM
Agreed, land acknowledgements are not about the university stealing land or committing actual wrongdoing. They simply acknowledge that the land has a history, some of which is violent. As an historian, I think its about recognizing that land is never empty and we were never the first to occupy it. Space has a history that impacts those who inhabit it. We do this in Europe - I can give you a whole list of the peoples that occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why shouldn't we do it in the US?
I don't think land acknowledgements are controversial or leftist. They're just accurate.

But you don't start every meeting in the UK mentioning all the peoples who occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why not? Some (most?) of those changes involved lots of violence.

Because (1) those peoples and cultures are all extinct, and (2) because they don't have live legal claims to title over that land.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 06, 2022, 09:39:22 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 09:33:23 AM

Quote from: artalot on April 06, 2022, 09:25:46 AM
Agreed, land acknowledgements are not about the university stealing land or committing actual wrongdoing. They simply acknowledge that the land has a history, some of which is violent. As an historian, I think its about recognizing that land is never empty and we were never the first to occupy it. Space has a history that impacts those who inhabit it. We do this in Europe - I can give you a whole list of the peoples that occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why shouldn't we do it in the US?
I don't think land acknowledgements are controversial or leftist. They're just accurate.

But you don't start every meeting in the UK mentioning all the peoples who occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why not? Some (most?) of those changes involved lots of violence.

Because (1) those peoples and cultures are all extinct, and (2) because they don't have live legal claims to title over that land.

As I said, acknowledgements often include groups who no longer exist, and who left the land long before Europeans arrived. Why are they mentioned?

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 09:52:13 AM

As I said, acknowledgements often include groups who no longer exist, and who left the land long before Europeans arrived. Why are they mentioned?

Because it's difficult to determine exactly who actually has title to some parcel of land, although it's easy to determine that the colonial state does not (since it established no treaty over it). Or perhaps because they were driven to extinction deliberately by the current occupants of the land, and in relatively recent history. Or perhaps because the acknowledger is mistaken or over-zealous (presumably you'll allow that there can be better and worse land acknowledgements).

It's hard to say, exactly, without specific cases to consider. What do you have in mind?

And why begrudge folks the breath it takes to say a simple line or two to represent something that is true, fair, and kind?

Protesting the idea itself edges towards rightist virtue-posturing, to be honest.

Methinks the OP protesteth too greatly, in fact...

M.

Someone linked to this article earlier, but I can't find it: https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 10:14:32 AM
And why begrudge folks the breath it takes to say a simple line or two to represent something that is true, fair, and kind?

In addition to the point made earlier, about it sounding lame, is the point that the more these statements get made at every event, in everyone's email signature, etc., it becomes just part of the cultural background noise. If there is some kind of redress that needs to be made, then it should be done so that the matter is legally concluded, and the history of the occupation of the land becomes discussed just like in any other country.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 10:41:08 AM

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 10:14:32 AM
And why begrudge folks the breath it takes to say a simple line or two to represent something that is true, fair, and kind?

In addition to the point made earlier, about it sounding lame, is the point that the more these statements get made at every event, in everyone's email signature, etc., it becomes just part of the cultural background noise. If there is some kind of redress that needs to be made, then it should be done so that the matter is legally concluded, and the history of the occupation of the land becomes discussed just like in any other country.

As I said earlier, before there can be redress, it has to be recognized that there was a harm.

I think you'll find that universities are working towards reconciliation, and that the land acknowledgement is that first step of acknowledging the harm and one's part in it.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 06, 2022, 10:45:15 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 10:41:08 AM

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 10:14:32 AM
And why begrudge folks the breath it takes to say a simple line or two to represent something that is true, fair, and kind?

In addition to the point made earlier, about it sounding lame, is the point that the more these statements get made at every event, in everyone's email signature, etc., it becomes just part of the cultural background noise. If there is some kind of redress that needs to be made, then it should be done so that the matter is legally concluded, and the history of the occupation of the land becomes discussed just like in any other country.

As I said earlier, before there can be redress, it has to be recognized that there was a harm.

Homo Sapiens wiped out the Neandertals, possibly. What should be done about that? The last of the Beothuk in Newfoundland died in 1829. What should be done about that, since there's no-one living whose ancestor experienced that harm?

Outrage trash fire.

Nothing to see here.

Move on.

M.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 10:53:41 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 06, 2022, 10:45:15 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 10:41:08 AM

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 10:14:32 AM
And why begrudge folks the breath it takes to say a simple line or two to represent something that is true, fair, and kind?

In addition to the point made earlier, about it sounding lame, is the point that the more these statements get made at every event, in everyone's email signature, etc., it becomes just part of the cultural background noise. If there is some kind of redress that needs to be made, then it should be done so that the matter is legally concluded, and the history of the occupation of the land becomes discussed just like in any other country.

As I said earlier, before there can be redress, it has to be recognized that there was a harm.

Homo Sapiens wiped out the Neandertals, possibly. What should be done about that? The last of the Beothuk in Newfoundland died in 1829. What should be done about that, since there's no-one living whose ancestor experienced that harm?

We know virtually nothing about neanderthals, including what happened to them, so even if we wanted to there's nothing we could do about it. But since we do know they never came close to North America, we at least know there's no need to acknowledge their territorial claims over land we occupy here.

As for the Beothuk, there's not much to be done about them now, either, save perhaps doing what we can to preserve elements of their culture and existence. Anything we might do is clearly supererogatory.

These are easy, not hard, cases. And they don't even begin to suggest that we don't have duties towards, say, the Kanien'kehá:ka.

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 01:21:27 PM
Outrage trash fire.

I'm certainly not outraged. My point is that this is an issue that seems pretty poorly thought out, so that it's hard to see any way of satisfactorily bringing things to a conclusion. As with many things, cleaving history into the oppressors and the oppressed and then extrapolating to the present in a similar manner makes for a lot of bizarre inconsistencies.

Quote from: artalot on April 06, 2022, 09:25:46 AM
Agreed, land acknowledgements are not about the university stealing land or committing actual wrongdoing. They simply acknowledge that the land has a history, some of which is violent. As an historian, I think its about recognizing that land is never empty and we were never the first to occupy it. Space has a history that impacts those who inhabit it. We do this in Europe - I can give you a whole list of the peoples that occupied Britain from the Iron Age to today. Why shouldn't we do it in the US?
I don't think land acknowledgements are controversial or leftist. They're just accurate.

Hypocritical posturing when you consider the colleges don't pay real estate tax, yet the blue collar townies do. If they were really worried about who they owe a debt to...
That's a good reason to confess about land acknowledgment, isn't it? It's virtue signaling without the effort required to have virtue.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 02:41:30 PM

Quote from: mamselle on April 06, 2022, 01:21:27 PM
Outrage trash fire.

I'm certainly not outraged. My point is that this is an issue that seems pretty poorly thought out, so that it's hard to see any way of satisfactorily bringing things to a conclusion. As with many things, cleaving history into the oppressors and the oppressed and then extrapolating to the present in a similar manner makes for a lot of bizarre inconsistencies.

And yet the peoples whose land claims are recognized in land acknowledgements are extant peoples who have suffered directly and in living memory.

QuoteAs I said, acknowledgements often include groups who no longer exist, and who left the land long before Europeans arrived. Why are they mentioned?

I am surprised by this claim. In my province, we live and work on treaty land; we acknowledge the groups with whom the treaty was made (and promises not kept). These groups are still very much a part of our communities.

In my field, I'm now seeing land acknowledgements in author bios for book authors/editors (e.g., Dr. Brilliant was raised in [city/region/state] on the land of the [Indigenous tribe]). I think everyone has the right to include whatever they want in their author bios, but the inclusion of this information was somewhat unexpected for me. Is this typical practice others are seeing?

Quote from: OneMoreYear on April 06, 2022, 03:58:40 PM
In my field, I'm now seeing land acknowledgements in author bios for book authors/editors (e.g., Dr. Brilliant was raised in [city/region/state] on the land of the [Indigenous tribe]). I think everyone has the right to include whatever they want in their author bios, but the inclusion of this information was somewhat unexpected for me. Is this typical practice others are seeing?

I have not. At first glance, it strikes me as somewhat misplaced.

I can either be a thief who acquired someone else's land, now part of our college, illegitimately, or I can be a temporary stowaway on campus without a real job, who's been added to the faculty, but is never real faculty. You have to pick one.

This would be a funny bit: all the adjunct faculty, just before welcoming the student into the broom closet-office that they share with six others, do a ceremonious announcement about who owned those 60 square feel of land previously.

Quote from: OneMoreYear on April 06, 2022, 03:58:40 PM
In my field, I'm now seeing land acknowledgements in author bios for book authors/editors (e.g., Dr. Brilliant was raised in [city/region/state] on the land of the [Indigenous tribe]). I think everyone has the right to include whatever they want in their author bios, but the inclusion of this information was somewhat unexpected for me. Is this typical practice others are seeing?

I've never seen that.

The people who make land acknowledgments may well be sincere and their expressions may be heartfelt. But what exactly has the practice achieved? If it is by now decades long in some circles, we should be able to point to something.

My understanding of an apology is that it is made to the people harmed. Yet never have I seen a single native person present when the statements are read out. So it doesn't look like an apology.

It looks more like a statement of contrition, as practiced by religion people to their gods.

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 04:11:11 PM

Quote from: OneMoreYear on April 06, 2022, 03:58:40 PM
In my field, I'm now seeing land acknowledgements in author bios for book authors/editors (e.g., Dr. Brilliant was raised in [city/region/state] on the land of the [Indigenous tribe]). I think everyone has the right to include whatever they want in their author bios, but the inclusion of this information was somewhat unexpected for me. Is this typical practice others are seeing?

I've never seen that.

The people who make land acknowledgments may well be sincere and their expressions may be heartfelt. But what exactly has the practice achieved? If it is by now decades long in some circles, we should be able to point to something.

My understanding of an apology is that it is made to the people harmed. Yet never have I seen a single native person present when the statements are read out. So it doesn't look like an apology.

It looks more like a statement of contrition, as practiced by religion people to their gods.

As I said initially, I think it's a necessary precondition for an apology. It is not itself an apology.

It is said publicly and at an institutional level because the harms were collective and public, not merely individual. And presumably it isdone in part to raise awareness.

Nobody did them here in Canada decades ago. They're new. And neither have we achieved the goals of reconciiation.

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 04:11:11 PM

Quote from: OneMoreYear on April 06, 2022, 03:58:40 PM
In my field, I'm now seeing land acknowledgements in author bios for book authors/editors (e.g., Dr. Brilliant was raised in [city/region/state] on the land of the [Indigenous tribe]). I think everyone has the right to include whatever they want in their author bios, but the inclusion of this information was somewhat unexpected for me. Is this typical practice others are seeing?

I've never seen that.

The people who make land acknowledgments may well be sincere and their expressions may be heartfelt. But what exactly has the practice achieved? If it is by now decades long in some circles, we should be able to point to something.

My understanding of an apology is that it is made to the people harmed. Yet never have I seen a single native person present when the statements are read out. So it doesn't look like an apology.

It looks more like a statement of contrition, as practiced by religion people to their gods.

Except that the gods are assumed to be able to hear it. As you pointed out, if there are no people to hear it who were harmed, then it's perhaps more like a legal disclaimer in an ad.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 06, 2022, 04:34:16 PM


Except that the gods are assumed to be able to hear it. As you pointed out, if there are no people to hear it who were harmed, then it's perhaps more like a legal disclaimer in an ad.

As a practical matter, it's onerous (for everyone) if we canvas audiences to find out whether there are any relevant Indigenous people around before we do whatever we're doing.

But also, if the point is at least partly educational (as I've suggested), then it doesn't matter whether anyone in the audience is Indigenous. What matters is that their awareness is raised. If the point is also partly symbolic (as some have plausibly suggested), then again, it doesn't matter. Symbolic gestures do matter to people, after all, even if they're not in the immediate vicinity. That's why we send people flowers when someone close to them dies.

I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Obviously, from a theoretical point of view, Thrasymachus was wrong. But pragmatically, well, he had a point.

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 05:13:21 PM
I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Here's an analogy to illustrate that point:

Suppose you buy a car, and after a few months you find out that the car was stolen. You didn't know it was stolen when you bought it. You would probably feel bad about it. You could give the car back to the original owner if you were really serious about "justice". If you claim to feel "guilty" about owning a stolen car, you could even turn yourself in to police and have yourself charged with theft.
What's far more likely is that you'll demand that the original owner gets "compensated", by either the insurance company, the government, or both. (NOT by you.)

In reality, I haven't seen a single person advocating "apologies" who has given their own property and assets to any indigenous person or group. What people claim as "feeling guilty" seems much more like moral Munchausen Syndrome (https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/munchausen-syndrome).

How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 07, 2022, 05:57:54 AM

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 05:13:21 PM
I have no idea what a precondition on a group apology might be. And I doubt anyone else does. So people are just making it up as they go along.

I will be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

Here's an analogy to illustrate that point:

Suppose you buy a car, and after a few months you find out that the car was stolen. You didn't know it was stolen when you bought it. You would probably feel bad about it. You could give the car back to the original owner if you were really serious about "justice". If you claim to feel "guilty" about owning a stolen car, you could even turn yourself in to police and have yourself charged with theft.
What's far more likely is that you'll demand that the original owner gets "compensated", by either the insurance company, the government, or both. (NOT by you.)

In reality, I haven't seen a single person advocating "apologies" who has given their own property and assets to any indigenous person or group. What people claim as "feeling guilty" seems much more like moral Munchausen Syndrome (https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/munchausen-syndrome).

Do you not know what happens when you're discovered to be in possession of stolen property? You don't get to keep it. You're the one on the hook.

Besides, what, exactly, is wrong with advocating or demanding compensation? Especially when the harms at issue happeneda in living memory or, in some cases, ongoing?

Quote from: mahagonny on April 07, 2022, 06:18:26 AM
How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

Well, social groups have different rules, called 'laws', which are enforced at the group level by the people in charge. These laws outline things like land title and transfer or extinguishment of title. Processes that adhere to these laws are called 'legal', and are not counted as 'theft'. Processes which do not adhere to these laws are called 'illegal', and do count as 'theft'.

More importantly, extant law here requires that the government enter into treaties for use of all the land. It did so for some of the country's land, but not the vast majority. At this point, settlement and so on on some of that territory is a fait accompli, but the situation is different for sparsely-inhabited but resource-rich land a few hundred kilometres north of the American border. In those cases, however, the state has a long history of murdering (engineering famines, etc.) or displacing people to appropriate land. In some cases, those forced displacements are within living memory. The state also has a long and recent history of just going in and building whatever, legal duties to consult be damned.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 07, 2022, 07:10:41 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on April 07, 2022, 06:18:26 AM
How is all land purported to belong to one individual or group, and not any other, not ultimately stolen? It was never doled out in pieces to any specific individuals by the Creator. It's like the game of Monopoly. Not supposed to be really 'fair.'

Well, social groups have different rules, called 'laws', which are enforced at the group level by the people in charge. These laws outline things like land title and transfer or extinguishment of title. Processes that adhere to these laws are called 'legal', and are not counted as 'theft'. Processes which do not adhere to these laws are called 'illegal', and do count as 'theft'.

Laws: you are referring to things like 'society prohibits you from setting fire to police cruisers and stealing from retail stores even though you may be very upset because George Floyd has died.'
Why am I listening to you?

Because I'm right?

And because we aren't talking about Black people?

It seems to me there are two levels: peoples who inhabited the land before the arrival of Europeans but who no longer existed at the time that Europeans arrived in the Americas (a very small number of named and known peoples); and a much larger group of Indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed, systematically wiped out and with whom treaties were made and then often broken.
The first group are part of the history of the Americas, and like the Celts in Britain, should simply be part of our history. Yet, they are not. My guess is that most people here have heard of the Celts but not the Hopewell or Tiwanaku peoples, which is just silly when you think about it. The second group have been done material and cultural harm by Europeans and continue to be underrepresented as both students and professors at institutions of higher education. And, again, if you know who the Italians are but not the Caddo, that is a relic of Euro-American colonialism. We don't need to be told that the Saxons inhabited Britain. We do need to be told that the Kickapoo once inhabited lands in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, but were forcibly removed to Texas and Northern Mexico, then again to Oklahoma, where most of their land was taken when the US government disbanded the reservation in 1893.
Land acknowledgements remind us of our American history, something which began long before the founding of the United States and that continues to be made today. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that the reservations of five nations in Oklahoma were never legally and that the Muscogee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole peoples still own that land.

TL;DR - if you are American and you know who the Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Britons, etc. and not the names of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas, you have proven that land acknowledgements are necessary to the understanding of American history. 

"TL;DR - if you are American and you know who the Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Britons, etc. and not the names of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas, you have proven that land acknowledgements are necessary to the understanding of American history. "
[/quote]

There are 574 federally recognized tribes (those with whom formal treaties were made with the USA), and countless others either extinct or who did not enter into treaties; thus i would hazard that knowing them all or even most would be a pretty difficult task. If reparations were in order for anyone, giving federal land back to the Native Americans, including the mineral rights!, should be at the top of the list. How many treaties were torn up once gold or oil was found? I am not saying that any of us alive are responsible, but a lot of Robber Barons and so forth made a lot of money and their descendant still benefit from those shady dealings--never mind shooting all the bison and letting them rot... OK /offsoapbox!

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 05:13:21 PM
l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 07, 2022, 10:00:43 AM

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 05:13:21 PM
l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

That is a good example.

How much land could be returned to native peoples?

Quote from: downer on April 07, 2022, 11:03:10 AM

Quote from: jimbogumbo on April 07, 2022, 10:00:43 AM

Quote from: downer on April 06, 2022, 05:13:21 PM
l be surprised if the practice continues in universities more than a few years.

When was the last time a group voluntarily gave back land they valued to natives they defeated, for moral reasons?

See below. The Japanese citizens whose land we took in WWII should have had it returned. That was FDR and Earl Warren, then Governor of California.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family

That is a good example.

How much land could be returned to native peoples?

Surprising to me that you are taking such an interest in this question here. Aren't you a part-time adjunct professor? If any land were to be returned to someone you won't get any credit for it.

While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 10, 2022, 07:20:16 PM
While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

What makes it insidious? What makes it dogma? And what makes it an attempt to impose dogma? I see a lot of assertions, but not much argument.

You'll recall that syllabi are required to contain a lot of information beyond the basic course outline.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 10, 2022, 08:04:14 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 10, 2022, 07:20:16 PM
While he was being snarky, the protesting professor @ UW makes a valid point. If the university as an institution wants to make a symbolic gesture with such an acknowledgement, so be it, but it does not belong in a course syllabus. Recommending the inclusion of such language is an insidious attempt to impose dogma.

What makes it insidious? What makes it dogma? And what makes it an attempt to impose dogma? I see a lot of assertions, but not much argument.

You'll recall that syllabi are required to contain a lot of information beyond the basic course outline.

The additional information in a syllabus tends to focus on academic regulations, legal requirements, additional resources for students, etc. The topic is irrelevant to the subject matter of the course.

It is dogma for UW to insist that only its approved message on the topic may and should be included in the syllabus.

It can also just be policy, and you do it.

M.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 10, 2022, 09:41:29 PM

The additional information in a syllabus tends to focus on academic regulations, legal requirements, additional resources for students, etc. The topic is irrelevant to the subject matter of the course.

"Tends" is doing a lot of work there. There's still information on the syllabus that doesn't pertain exclusively to instructional matters, such as welcoming students to the course, university-level operational details (including security information, statements on sexual harassment, violence, and misconduct, etc.

Unless, perhaps, you're at a magical unicorn institution with absolutely minimal syllabus boilerplate, or zero syllabus oversight?

Quote
It is dogma for UW to insist that only its approved message on the topic may and should be included in the syllabus.

Once again, you claim it's dogma but don't offer any supporting argument. What makes it dogma, specifically? And what makes it insidious? Those terms have fairly strict application-conditions, and the onus is on you to at least make a plausible case that they apply rather than other, less charged terms.

Let me give you an example of a university requirement that's much more significant, directly impacts our teaching (and negatively so, I'd argue), and yet which still doesn't qualify as insidious': at my institution, we don't have full control over our assessments. Each course has a syllabus template, and each section of a course must conform to the template's methods of assessment. If the template doesn't have exams or quizzes, we can't assign them; if it doesn't have essays, tough shit. If you want to assign presentations, capstone projects, scaffolded essays, etc., you're almost certainly out of luck. I think that inflexibility leads to generally bad pedagogical practices, at least where methods of assessment are concerned. The effect is clearly bigger, and more deleterious, than a blurb acknowledging that your campus sits on stolen land. But it's not insidious.


You're also shifting the goalposts. Is UW insisting that only its approved land acknowledgement may or should be used? I've not yet seen any evidence of that.

You don't have to like land acknowledgements. You don't have to approve of them. You're welcome to oppose their inclusion. But you shouldn't go around mindlessly catastrophizing them, either. Especially when they're common practice in some countries and gasp the sky hasn't fallen on anyone's head yet.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 10, 2022, 10:37:28 PM

Quote
It is dogma for UW to insist that only its approved message on the topic may and should be included in the syllabus.

Once again, you claim it's dogma but don't offer any supporting argument. What makes it dogma, specifically? And what makes it insidious? Those terms have fairly strict application-conditions, and the onus is on you to at least make a plausible case that they apply rather than other, less charged terms.


You're also shifting the goalposts. Is UW insisting that only its approved land acknowledgement may or should be used? I've not yet seen any evidence of that.

You don't have to like land acknowledgements. You don't have to approve of them. You're welcome to oppose their inclusion. But you shouldn't go around mindlessly catastrophizing them, either. Especially when they're common practice in some countries and gasp the sky hasn't fallen on anyone's head yet.

I claim that it is dogma because as the article recounts, UW removed the professor's own statement from his syllabus. Thus professors can either include UW's approved statement or not have one at all, which means that the only message that may be conveyed via the syllabus is the official one (I seriously doubt if UW would make a special effort to offer separate sections for students who might object to UW's official message being included in a syllabus). If the university were to give professors the option either to include a syllabus statement to the effect that the Christian God (or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) is the one, true God or to remain silent on the subject, we would hear howls of protest about the university's attempt to impose religious dogma.

These sorts of statements are insidious because they unnecessarily politicize the curriculum and undermine free speech and academic freedom. Professor Reges is willing to stand up to this, but many others won't. And I wouldn't hold up Canada or any other countries as shining examples of free speech protection.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 10, 2022, 10:37:28 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 10, 2022, 09:41:29 PM

The additional information in a syllabus tends to focus on academic regulations, legal requirements, additional resources for students, etc. The topic is irrelevant to the subject matter of the course.

"Tends" is doing a lot of work there. There's still information on the syllabus that doesn't pertain exclusively to instructional matters, such as welcoming students to the course, university-level operational details (including security information, statements on sexual harassment, violence, and misconduct, etc.

All of these "university-level operational details" are related to potential action of students; either actions which are prohibited (with the resulting consequences), or actions which are allowed or encouraged (such as where to access student services if needed.)


Things that don't belong in the syllabus are statements that students ought to eat a healthy diet, get regular exercise, look both ways before crossing the street, say "please" and "thank you" and so on. Unless a student comes from an indigenous community, the land on which the student lives , buys groceries, plays soccer, etc. is probably in the same category as the university regarding land status, so the land acknowledgement is no more relevant to the institution than it is to basically everywhere else the student spends time.

Unless there's some specific action expected of students, ( or forbidden to students), the land acknowledgement in the syllabus doesn't serve any clear purpose other than ideological posturing.

(By contrast, if an institution had an archaeological dig on-site revealing a former indigenous settlement, then a land acknowledgement could indeed have specific relevance, especaily if there were a monument or building on campus where people could go to learn more about that historical community.)

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 11, 2022, 12:24:09 AM

I claim that it is dogma because as the article recounts, UW removed the professor's own statement from his syllabus. Thus professors can either include UW's approved statement or not have one at all, which means that the only message that may be conveyed via the syllabus is the official one (I seriously doubt if UW would make a special effort to offer separate sections for students who might object to UW's official message being included in a syllabus).

The removed message was unequivocally disrespectful (and, as far as academic matters are concerned, it misrepresented Locke's theory of property). If you have a choice between providing a respectful land acknowledgement or none at all, then the institution isn't exactly requiring you to believe something without argument--it's not requiring you to believe anything at all. It's just requiring that official documents be minimally respectful.

And since a syllabus is an official university document, not a personal communication, piece of research, etc., it's hard to see how exercising oversight like that infringes upon one's academic freedom.

Quote
These sorts of statements are insidious because they unnecessarily politicize the curriculum and undermine free speech and academic freedom. Professor Reges is willing to stand up to this, but many others won't.

To show that it's insidious, you need to show that it (1) causes serious harm, and (2) spreads gradually or beneath one's notice. What, exactly, is the slippery slope here, and what's it leading to? An Indigenous rebellion and genocide against white people?

I'm willing to grant you (2) for the sake of argument, although it seems pretty dubious to me, especially since a land acknowledgement is made in plain sight. But you need to establish (1). And it's just far from obvious that there's any harm here, let alone a serious one. The bar for that is pretty high.

The potential harms you're identifying might be harms, but equally, they may not be (I certainly don't see any prima facie reason to grant them, and you've not yet made a non-circular case for them). Even if we accept that they are harms, however, we still need to establish that they're serious harms if we want to qualify them as insidious. And given the givens (a disrespectful acknowledgement, the ability to opt out) it just doesn't look like they could ever rise to meet that standard.

Like I said, you can think they're a bad thing. But insidious?

QuoteAnd I wouldn't hold up Canada or any other countries as shining examples of free speech protection.

I'm not asking you to. I'm saying that Canada and New Zealand are hardly free speech hellscapes despite (1) having had land acknowledgements for years (though not decades), and (2) having some laws minimally regulating speech. To the extent that we're not "shining examples of free speech protection", you'd need to do some legwork to connect those issues to land acknowledgements.

(Indeed, you won't find provincial legislators banning the teaching of certain aspects of our history or the mention of certain kinds of familial arrangements in either place, which is at least a marked improvement upon the American status quo.)

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 05:32:02 AM

All of these "university-level operational details" are related to potential action of students; either actions which are prohibited (with the resulting consequences), or actions which are allowed or encouraged (such as where to access student services if needed.)

Once you allow that non-course-relevant but university-relevant material is appropriate on the syllabus, you open the door to university-relevant material like a land acknowledgement.

Quote
Unless a student comes from an indigenous community, the land on which the student lives , buys groceries, plays soccer, etc. is probably in the same category as the university regarding land status, so the land acknowledgement is no more relevant to the institution than it is to basically everywhere else the student spends time.

As I see it, the point is that public institutions are expected to shoulder a greater share of responsibility for reconciliation than the private sector because of their government ties. Although we certainly have some individual responsibilities for facilitating reconciliation, it's obviously a project that must be (and is best) pursued collectively, by the government, given the nature of the historical injustice and how we've collectively benefited from it (e.g. by having our universities exist on land which, technically, they cannot legally occupy).

Quote
Unless there's some specific action expected of students, ( or forbidden to students), the land acknowledgement in the syllabus doesn't serve any clear purpose other than ideological posturing.

Again, I take it that part of the point is educational. The specific action expected, then, is learning a bit about our recent history and extant law, and the university's place in it, as well as making local Indigenous populations visibile rather than consigning them to invisibility.

Quote
(By contrast, if an institution had an archaeological dig on-site revealing a former indigenous settlement, then a land acknowledgement could indeed have specific relevance, especaily if there were a monument or building on campus where people could go to learn more about that historical community.)

This sort of thing is, of course, the case at many of our universities. Even at my podunk institution.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 07:23:40 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 05:32:02 AM

All of these "university-level operational details" are related to potential action of students; either actions which are prohibited (with the resulting consequences), or actions which are allowed or encouraged (such as where to access student services if needed.)

Once you allow that non-course-relevant but university-relevant material is appropriate on the syllabus, you open the door to university-relevant material like a land acknowledgement.

Quote
Unless a student comes from an indigenous community, the land on which the student lives , buys groceries, plays soccer, etc. is probably in the same category as the university regarding land status, so the land acknowledgement is no more relevant to the institution than it is to basically everywhere else the student spends time.

As I see it, the point is that public institutions are expected to shoulder a greater share of responsibility for reconciliation than the private sector because of their government ties. Although we certainly have some individual responsibilities for facilitating reconciliation, it's obviously a project that must be (and is best) pursued collectively, by the government, given the nature of the historical injustice and how we've collectively benefited from it (e.g. by having our universities exist on land which, technically, they cannot legally occupy).

So where can (and should) they go? Should they disband?

Quote

Quote
Unless there's some specific action expected of students, ( or forbidden to students), the land acknowledgement in the syllabus doesn't serve any clear purpose other than ideological posturing.

Again, I take it that part of the point is educational. The specific action expected, then, is learning a bit about our recent history and extant law, and the university's place in it, as well as making local Indigenous populations visibile rather than consigning them to invisibility.

If the "action" is learning, they'd be much farther ahead by simply creating a required indigeneous studies course that every student must take.

The "expectation" of learning about the issues just from hearing a land acknowledgement over and over again is not well-founded.

Maybe people who don't have a religious background are unused to liturgy and are overly impressed by the novelty of this sort of thing. People who have a religious background are well aware of how performative things like this, no matter how well-intentioned, don't prevent normal human hypocrisy and/or insincerity.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 07:45:27 AM

So where can (and should) they go? Should they disband?

No. What should be done is for the federal government to negotiate a treaty and compensation with the peoples whose land it is (or, alternately, to repeal the relevant laws, although that is almost certainly a bad idea on every front). That is, of course, one of the aims of Reconciliation. Several other aims were set out in the wake of the TRC, of course, some educational, some legal, etc.

Quote

If the "action" is learning, they'd be much farther ahead by simply creating a required indigeneous studies course that every student must take.

Almost certainly. And that's under discussion at the institutional level across the country, although I expect it won't materialize at the post-secondary level (in many provinces, it's already more or less in place at the level of the secondary curriculum).

But as I said in my first post, symbolic gestures do matter, especially to people who have been wronged.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 08:02:39 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 07:45:27 AM

So where can (and should) they go? Should they disband?

No. What should be done is for the federal government to negotiate a treaty and compensation with the peoples whose land it is (or, alternately, to repeal the relevant laws, although that is almost certainly a bad idea on every front). That is, of course, one of the aims of Reconciliation. Several other aims were set out in the wake of the TRC, of course, some educational, some legal, etc.

So, working stiffs and our children can start paying extra taxes to compensate the people who are the rightful owners of the land that enabled tenured academics and administrators public distinctions and cushy 30 year retirements, since these high-minded academics have recently experienced an epiphany about the rights of these indigenous people to restitution? I had a feeling we were going here.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 08:02:39 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 07:45:27 AM

So where can (and should) they go? Should they disband?

No. What should be done is for the federal government to negotiate a treaty and compensation with the peoples whose land it is (or, alternately, to repeal the relevant laws, although that is almost certainly a bad idea on every front).

Canada's GDP (2020, according to the World Bank), was about 1.6 trillion dollars. If most of the land is stolen, how much of that 1.6 trillion should be turned over to indigenous people, and where should all of the "settlers" go?

To piggyback on Para's comment:

QuoteQuote
(By contrast, if an institution had an archaeological dig on-site revealing a former indigenous settlement, then a land acknowledgement could indeed have specific relevance, especaily if there were a monument or building on campus where people could go to learn more about that historical community.)

This sort of thing is, of course, the case at many of our universities. Even at my podunk institution.

I know of at least two other (U.S.) schools who do archeological digs on their own property and record their findings in public interpretive signage as their findings lead to more specific knowledge, conclusions, and awareness.

So this is not new.

Nor, so far, have any harms accrued to those who do the work, those who post the signage, those who read it, or those of us who include it in our own tours of such areas.

M.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 07:23:40 AM

The removed message was unequivocally disrespectful (and, as far as academic matters are concerned, it misrepresented Locke's theory of property). If you have a choice between providing a respectful land acknowledgement or none at all, then the institution isn't exactly requiring you to believe something without argument--it's not requiring you to believe anything at all. It's just requiring that official documents be minimally respectful.

To show that it's insidious, you need to show that it (1) causes serious harm, and (2) spreads gradually or beneath one's notice. What, exactly, is the slippery slope here, and what's it leading to? An Indigenous rebellion and genocide against white people?

I'm willing to grant you (2) for the sake of argument, although it seems pretty dubious to me, especially since a land acknowledgement is made in plain sight. But you need to establish (1). And it's just far from obvious that there's any harm here, let alone a serious one. The bar for that is pretty high.

The potential harms you're identifying might be harms, but equally, they may not be (I certainly don't see any prima facie reason to grant them, and you've not yet made a non-circular case for them). Even if we accept that they are harms, however, we still need to establish that they're serious harms if we want to qualify them as insidious. And given the givens (a disrespectful acknowledgement, the ability to opt out) it just doesn't look like they could ever rise to meet that standard.

Like I said, you can think they're a bad thing. But insidious?

I'm not asking you to. I'm saying that Canada and New Zealand are hardly free speech hellscapes despite (1) having had land acknowledgements for years (though not decades), and (2) having some laws minimally regulating speech. To the extent that we're not "shining examples of free speech protection", you'd need to do some legwork to connect those issues to land acknowledgements.

(Indeed, you won't find provincial legislators banning the teaching of certain aspects of our history or the mention of certain kinds of familial arrangements in either place, which is at least a marked improvement upon the American status quo.)

The professor's statement might be disrespectful to the university administration in the context of protesting the administration's officially approved message, but not the statement itself (which was the rationale for creating a separate course section for students). Your mere assertion doesn't make a statement either affirming or denying a property right "unequivocally disrespectful" (especially if you are using Canadian standards). What's more, the principle of free speech does not require that disagreement must be made in a "respectful" manner. (Whether the professor misrepresented Locke's theory of property is irrelevant and also merely asserted by you.)

The compelled speech and chilling effect aspects are what make it insidious. As you admit, this is part of a specific political agenda to promote an "apology" and "reconciliation". Instructors should not be forced to participate in promoting political agendas in their classrooms.

So, there is no "right," or "wrong," anymore, there is only "political"--which is only wrong if it's the other person's "political" you're talking about?

M.

Quote from: mamselle on April 11, 2022, 09:30:05 AM
So, there is no "right," or "wrong," anymore, there is only "political"--which is only wrong if it's the other person's "political" you're talking about?

The distinction I would make between those terms is something like this:

• "Right" - things you are supposed to do.
• "Wrong" - things you are not supposed to do.
• "Political" - things you are supposed to believe.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 08:52:50 AM


Canada's GDP (2020, according to the World Bank), was about 1.6 trillion dollars. If most of the land is stolen, how much of that 1.6 trillion should be turned over to indigenous people, and where should all of the "settlers" go?

There's no 'ifs' about it, since extant law going back to colonial days requires treaties for land use, and ~65% of the country is not covered by treaties.

Expulsion and deportation are obviously not on the table, and nobody is calling for them. What they are calling for are recognition of land claims, more robust legal protections, a seat at the table when decisions are made about land use, etc. Financial compensation for land that won't be returned is presumably a possibility, but as far as I know it's not even a priority.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 11, 2022, 09:26:54 AM

The professor's statement might be disrespectful to the university administration in the context of protesting the administration's officially approved message, but not the statement itself (which was the rationale for creating a separate course section for students). Your mere assertion doesn't make a statement either affirming or denying a property right "unequivocally disrespectful" (especially if you are using Canadian standards).

Do you genuinely not think that saying

Quote

"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.

mocks the practice of land acknowledgements and thereby derides the Coast Salish's land claims?

It's one thing to make a bare statement, or even to say such a thing in the context of a serious discussion about the issue (although in that context, the misrepresentation of events and of Locke's account of property becomes a serious problem). But when it's satirical, it acquires different content. That's the point of satire, after all, and it comes at someone's expense. The meaning here is plain for all to see: it's not just that we should deny Coast Salish claims to their land, but that they're not even worthy of serious engagement. It says this through the medium of ridiculing land acknowledgements.

QuoteWhat's more, the principle of free speech does not require that disagreement must be made in a "respectful" manner. (Whether the professor misrepresented Locke's theory of property is irrelevant and also merely asserted by you.)

That is correct. But it also doesn't mean that anyone can say anything at all in any context whatsoever. Indeed, you'll recall that the First Amendment is about government regulation of speech, and that non-government entities can regulate their members' speech in various ways. Remember also that these are institutional documents, and they're required to conform to certain standards. You can't paste just anything into a syllabus, after all. These are limitations we regularly accept because they're quite minimal. The university decided that, in this case, the document did not adhere to its standards.

As for Locke: again, you're correct. I'm relying on my authority as someone with a PhD in the relevant discipline, because I don't have the time to teach a whole free class on seventeenth-century theories of property, let alone on contemporary responses to it. I'm also assuming that anyone who has read Locke on property understands that the labour theory is part of the first phase of property rights and applies to the state of nature. The second phase is the development of trade, the third of governments and institutions. And I guess I'm assuming that everyone knows that when Europeans set foot in the New World, it wasn't actually empty and, thus, wasn't in the first Lockean phase (nor, indeed, were Europeans in the first phase).

Is it irrelevant? Not if you want to contend that what he said was a bare assertion of fact. Because in that case, the fact that it's false is absolutely relevant. If we concede that it's satirical and mocking, then sure, its accuracy isn't all that relevant--but then, we've conceded that it's disrespectful and thus violates university standards for syllabi.

Quote
The compelled speech and chilling effect aspects are what make it insidious. As you admit, this is part of a specific political agenda to promote an "apology" and "reconciliation". Instructors should not be forced to participate in promoting political agendas in their classrooms.

Not all compelled speech is insidious. As a mandated reporter, for example, I am legally required to report a student who, say, tells me that they abuse little children. When you take the witness stand in a trial, you are legally required to speak truly.

Or, again, consider the way in which my university controls my assessments. I think the practice is pedagogically deleterious. I expect you'd agree. It certainly infringes upon my academic or instructional freedom, and I think it's obvious that its negative consequences are more immediate and widespread (and more significant, though perhaps we'd disagree about that) than those of a land acknowledgement. But it doesn't rise to the level of being insidious, because the stakes remain relatively low and it's a perfectly overt policy.

Again, to qualify as 'insidious' it would have to, at a minimum, (1) have very bad consequences, and (2) be covert. Neither you, nor anyone, has shown that it satisfies those conditions.

Is it chilling? I struggle to see how.

Is the instructor being forced to participate? It's hard to see how you can be forced to participate in something you aren't required to do. Remember:

QuoteThe University of Washington has countered by noting there is no university policy requiring a land acknowledgment or specific text that is required to be used for land acknowledgments.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 10:09:42 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 08:52:50 AM


Canada's GDP (2020, according to the World Bank), was about 1.6 trillion dollars. If most of the land is stolen, how much of that 1.6 trillion should be turned over to indigenous people, and where should all of the "settlers" go?

There's no 'ifs' about it, since extant law going back to colonial days requires treaties for land use, and ~65% of the country is not covered by treaties.

Expulsion and deportation are obviously not on the table, and nobody is calling for them. What they are calling for are recognition of land claims, more robust legal protections, a seat at the table when decisions are made about land use, etc. Financial compensation for land that won't be returned is presumably a possibility, but as far as I know it's not even a priority.

What in the heck could "recognition of land claims" mean if it didn't in some way suggest the return of the land or compensation in lieu?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 07:23:40 AM
[

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 05:32:02 AM

All of these "university-level operational details" are related to potential action of students; either actions which are prohibited (with the resulting consequences), or actions which are allowed or encouraged (such as where to access student services if needed.)

Once you allow that non-course-relevant but university-relevant material is appropriate on the syllabus, you open the door to university-relevant material like a land acknowledgement.

I agree with marshwiggle. The university-relevant material is related to regulating student conduct on campus that is essential to maintaining good order. Land acknowledgements have no immediate relevance to that end.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 10:17:02 AM

What in the heck could "recognition of land claims" mean if it didn't in some way suggest the return of the land or compensation in lieu?

Sometimes it's as simple as acknowledging that it was theirs, and taken unjustly (e.g. in violation of existing treaties, or in the absence of any). Not every harm can be undone or compensated for. But as I said in my first post, recognizing that a harm was committed seems to be a necessary condition for a genuine apology.

And sometimes, of course, it may mean that crown corporations can't dig shit up without permission. It depends. But I can tell you that nobody thinks Vancouver should be razed to the ground and its population dispersed to some chunk of Ontario covered by a treaty.

Quote from: mamselle on April 11, 2022, 09:30:05 AM
So, there is no "right," or "wrong," anymore, there is only "political"--which is only wrong if it's the other person's "political" you're talking about?

M.

Well, there are laws, which get cited as parameters of right and wrong, when it's convenient to the present argument.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 10:28:21 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 10:17:02 AM

What in the heck could "recognition of land claims" mean if it didn't in some way suggest the return of the land or compensation in lieu?

Sometimes it's as simple as acknowledging that it was theirs, and taken unjustly (e.g. in violation of existing treaties, or in the absence of any). Not every harm can be undone or compensated for. But as I said in my first post, recognizing that a harm was committed seems to be a necessary condition for a genuine apology.

That's the awkward phrase. If I say to someone, "Sorry I stole your car", then my "apology" is not genuine unless I give the car back. If I say "Sorry your car got stolen", without any suggestion that I'm responsible, then  I may decide to loan you my car for a while to help you out, but I have no business browbeating everyone in the neighbourhood into doing likewise. My "sorry" in that case isn't an apology; it's an expression of sympathy.

It seems that advocates want the "apology" to First Nations to sound like the former, but only require something like the latter.

Quote

And sometimes, of course, it may mean that crown corporations can't dig shit up without permission. It depends. But I can tell you that nobody thinks Vancouver should be razed to the ground and its population dispersed to some chunk of Ontario covered by a treaty.

The much more likely scenario would be to add some sort of property tax levy to all of Vancouver, in perpetuity, which would then go to First Nations. How big it would have to be to satisfy the courts is unclear.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 12:16:38 PM

That's the awkward phrase. If I say to someone, "Sorry I stole your car", then my "apology" is not genuine unless I give the car back. If I say "Sorry your car got stolen", without any suggestion that I'm responsible, then  I may decide to loan you my car for a while to help you out, but I have no business browbeating everyone in the neighbourhood into doing likewise. My "sorry" in that case isn't an apology; it's an expression of sympathy.

It seems that advocates want the "apology" to First Nations to sound like the former, but only require something like the latter.

I don't think that's right. It's plausible when the thing is in your power to return, but I think you can genuinely apologize for irreversible actions (e.g. accidentally or deliberately killing someone, saying something really, really cutting and mean, cheating, etc.). But not if you don't first acknowledge the harm you've caused!

Quote

The much more likely scenario would be to add some sort of property tax levy to all of Vancouver, in perpetuity, which would then go to First Nations. How big it would have to be to satisfy the courts is unclear.

One can always hope doing so would tank real estate prices in the region...

QuoteOne can always hope doing so would tank real estate prices in the region...

Net of tax. :-)

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 10:09:42 AM

Do you genuinely not think that saying

Quote

"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.

mocks the practice of land acknowledgements and thereby derides the Coast Salish's land claims?

It's one thing to make a bare statement, or even to say such a thing in the context of a serious discussion about the issue (although in that context, the misrepresentation of events and of Locke's account of property becomes a serious problem). But when it's satirical, it acquires different content. That's the point of satire, after all, and it comes at someone's expense. The meaning here is plain for all to see: it's not just that we should deny Coast Salish claims to their land, but that they're not even worthy of serious engagement. It says this through the medium of ridiculing land acknowledgements.

QuoteWhat's more, the principle of free speech does not require that disagreement must be made in a "respectful" manner. (Whether the professor misrepresented Locke's theory of property is irrelevant and also merely asserted by you.)

That is correct. But it also doesn't mean that anyone can say anything at all in any context whatsoever. Indeed, you'll recall that the First Amendment is about government regulation of speech, and that non-government entities can regulate their members' speech in various ways. Remember also that these are institutional documents, and they're required to conform to certain standards. You can't paste just anything into a syllabus, after all. These are limitations we regularly accept because they're quite minimal. The university decided that, in this case, the document did not adhere to its standards.

As for Locke: again, you're correct. I'm relying on my authority as someone with a PhD in the relevant discipline, because I don't have the time to teach a whole free class on seventeenth-century theories of property, let alone on contemporary responses to it. I'm also assuming that anyone who has read Locke on property understands that the labour theory is part of the first phase of property rights and applies to the state of nature. The second phase is the development of trade, the third of governments and institutions. And I guess I'm assuming that everyone knows that when Europeans set foot in the New World, it wasn't actually empty and, thus, wasn't in the first Lockean phase (nor, indeed, were Europeans in the first phase).

Is it irrelevant? Not if you want to contend that what he said was a bare assertion of fact. Because in that case, the fact that it's false is absolutely relevant. If we concede that it's satirical and mocking, then sure, its accuracy isn't all that relevant--but then, we've conceded that it's disrespectful and thus violates university standards for syllabi.

Quote
The compelled speech and chilling effect aspects are what make it insidious. As you admit, this is part of a specific political agenda to promote an "apology" and "reconciliation". Instructors should not be forced to participate in promoting political agendas in their classrooms.

Not all compelled speech is insidious. As a mandated reporter, for example, I am legally required to report a student who, say, tells me that they abuse little children. When you take the witness stand in a trial, you are legally required to speak truly.

Or, again, consider the way in which my university controls my assessments. I think the practice is pedagogically deleterious. I expect you'd agree. It certainly infringes upon my academic or instructional freedom, and I think it's obvious that its negative consequences are more immediate and widespread (and more significant, though perhaps we'd disagree about that) than those of a land acknowledgement. But it doesn't rise to the level of being insidious, because the stakes remain relatively low and it's a perfectly overt policy.

Again, to qualify as 'insidious' it would have to, at a minimum, (1) have very bad consequences, and (2) be covert. Neither you, nor anyone, has shown that it satisfies those conditions.

Is it chilling? I struggle to see how.

Is the instructor being forced to participate? It's hard to see how you can be forced to participate in something you aren't required to do.

It does not follow that mocking a symbolic practice necessarily means that the substantive issue to which it refers is entirely without merit (there are plenty of symbolic gestures associated with things that I support which I nonetheless believe deserve ridicule). It's even truer in a case like this where one might reasonably believe that it will only ever be a symbolic gesture (aka virtue-signaling).

UW is a public institution and thus subject to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which, unlike free speech hellscapes like Canada, does not allow government to punish disrespectful or hate speech. The course syllabus is a curious hybrid. According to National Council for Teacher Quality v. Curators of the University of Missouri (2014), the syllabus is the intellectual property of the instructor. Therefore it does not seem obvious that a university may willy nilly decide what sort of political speech may and may not be included in a syllabus since it is necessarily associated with the instructor.

It is insidious when adminicritters recommend the inclusion of political stances in the curriculum, which can put pressure on instructors who refuse to do so. It's not an allegedly innocent "raising awareness" campaign but, once again, an attempt to impose dogma and adminicritters may retaliate against instructors who decline to follow their recommendation.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 11, 2022, 04:30:37 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 11, 2022, 12:16:38 PM

That's the awkward phrase. If I say to someone, "Sorry I stole your car", then my "apology" is not genuine unless I give the car back. If I say "Sorry your car got stolen", without any suggestion that I'm responsible, then  I may decide to loan you my car for a while to help you out, but I have no business browbeating everyone in the neighbourhood into doing likewise. My "sorry" in that case isn't an apology; it's an expression of sympathy.

It seems that advocates want the "apology" to First Nations to sound like the former, but only require something like the latter.

I don't think that's right. It's plausible when the thing is in your power to return, but I think you can genuinely apologize for irreversible actions (e.g. accidentally or deliberately killing someone, saying something really, really cutting and mean, cheating, etc.). But not if you don't first acknowledge the harm you've caused!

These are all things you have personally done which caused harm. They're not things done by people decades or even centuries before you were born.

What are the things that non-Indigenous people today are doing and have done that have caused harm, and how does that harm compare to governments ignoring treaties in the past, residential schools, etc.?

Quote

Quote

The much more likely scenario would be to add some sort of property tax levy to all of Vancouver, in perpetuity, which would then go to First Nations. How big it would have to be to satisfy the courts is unclear.

One can always hope doing so would tank real estate prices in the region...

Because the economic collapse of the region would be so good for indigenous communities?

Yeah, what are we hearing from the communities that would be affected?
Most of the energy, argumentation around these social justice issues is typically coming from liberal whites, as with racial things that the USA is bickering over.

Quote from: mahagonny on April 12, 2022, 07:42:23 AM
Most of the energy, argumentation around these social justice issues is typically coming from liberal whites, as with racial things that the USA is bickering over.

Of course, if white people are all you listen to, that's all you will hear.

Quote from: Hegemony on April 12, 2022, 03:24:14 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on April 12, 2022, 07:42:23 AM
Most of the energy, argumentation around these social justice issues is typically coming from liberal whites, as with racial things that the USA is bickering over.

Of course, if white people are all you listen to, that's all you will hear.

If you follow my posts, even occasionally, you already know that's not true of me.

I live in an area of the country where land was recently returned to Indigenous People due to a Supreme Court case. The Indigenous People are pretty happy. It has very little effect on my life, since I am not a member of any of the tribes affected. I do not pay taxes to the tribe, I still own my property, etc. But the rights and culture of the tribe have been recognized. That it what a land acknowledgement does, especially in the absence of state and federal action.

The problem seems to be that some see this is an issue that happened only in the past. But it is still happening. Native Americans have the highest poverty rate in the US: 25.4%. The mortality rate of Native Americans was at least 2.8 times that of whites - and that's one of the more conservative numbers I found. Native Americans aren't poor because they don't work and they didn't die of COVID because they were running around maskless. The US government took their land, forcing them into deep, generational poverty that has lasting health effects. Acknowledging that wrong allows us to begin to address present inequities not as the faults of individual Indigenous people, but as a systematic issue.

Quoteland was recently returned to Indigenous People due to a Supreme Court case

Apparently not. No land was returned. Criminal and civil law determinations were returned to the tribes. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889562040/supreme-court-rules-that-about-half-of-oklahoma-is-indian-land (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889562040/supreme-court-rules-that-about-half-of-oklahoma-is-indian-land)

But my problem with this thread is different, and it's taken me a while to figure out what it is:

Clearly and obviously, treaties must be respected! pacta sunt servanda Thus, treaty violations must be compensated. Western legal tradition.

So, what's wrong with Land Acknowledgements at universities, inside instructors' syllabi? It's forced speech! Totally against Western legal tradition.

Legalities aside, forced speech is a strategy with a venerable pedigree to incite, coerce, or exaggerate support for somebody's preferred position.

Put into this situation,  I would resist forced speech even if I agreed with the underlying substantive proposition. The long run costs to the average individual are higher if forced speech is allowed.

In the original case, the professor was not forced to include the acknowledgment. But he was prohibited from including a dissent from the acknowledgment in his syllabus.

I'm required to include various statements in syllabi not only about the course description and learning outcomes, but also at one place about the university mission. If the "land acknowledgment" statement says "The university holds that the land it is situated on was stolen from native peoples and the university advocates for the return of the land to those native peoples", how different is that requiring professors to include the university mission on a syllabus?

I'm also still unclear if universities do hold this position, then what is the hold up on returning the land? Don't universities own the land they are on? Why not just get their lawyers to sign over the deeds?

Quote from: downer on April 13, 2022, 02:32:02 PM
In the original case, the professor was not forced to include the acknowledgment. But he was prohibited from including a dissent from the acknowledgment in his syllabus.

I'm required to include various statements in syllabi not only about the course description and learning outcomes, but also at one place about the university mission. If the "land acknowledgment" statement says "The university holds that the land it is situated on was stolen from native peoples and the university advocates for the return of the land to those native peoples", how different is that requiring professors to include the university mission on a syllabus?

I'm also still unclear if universities do hold this position, then what is the hold up on returning the land? Don't universities own the land they are on? Why not just get their lawyers to sign over the deeds?

Yes, what the university can force you to do is a question of legalities. If it's a US public, I don't think the university can force speech.

I would agree that a private university making the statement as a matter of policy and forcing the speech on instructors, or not, should just give the land back and shut up.

So, in addition to objecting to the politics of forced speech, I object to such statements because they are BS.

Quote from: artalot on April 13, 2022, 01:41:43 PM
The problem seems to be that some see this is an issue that happened only in the past. But it is still happening. Native Americans have the highest poverty rate in the US: 25.4%. The mortality rate of Native Americans was at least 2.8 times that of whites - and that's one of the more conservative numbers I found.

This is the point; those issues are hard to fix (and will take ongoing effort, with slow progress, in perpetuity.) Crying, apologizing, and putting "land acknowledgments" on every piece of paper and webpage are, by comparison, easy-peasy, and get immediate ego-gratification rewards.

Quote from: downer on April 13, 2022, 02:32:02 PM
In the original case, the professor was not forced to include the acknowledgment. But he was prohibited from including a dissent from the acknowledgment in his syllabus.

I'm required to include various statements in syllabi not only about the course description and learning outcomes, but also at one place about the university mission. If the "land acknowledgment" statement says "The university holds that the land it is situated on was stolen from native peoples and the university advocates for the return of the land to those native peoples", how different is that requiring professors to include the university mission on a syllabus?

I'm also still unclear if universities do hold this position, then what is the hold up on returning the land? Don't universities own the land they are on? Why not just get their lawyers to sign over the deeds?

I would argue that the difference is that this isn't just compelled speech (which government may require in certain circumstances) but compelled political speech, which is forbidden by the 1A.

In Wooley v. Maynard, SCOTUS ruled: "The State may not constitutionally require an individual to participate in the dissemination of an ideological message by displaying it on his private property in a manner and for the express purpose that it be observed and read by the public." Remember that the course syllabus is the intellectual property of the instructor, not the university.

In Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California, SCOTUS ruled that forcing an entity to carry a political message that it may or may not agree with creates an unconstitutional pressure to respond on the part of the entity being forced to carry the political message: "Should TURN choose, for example, to urge appellant's customers to vote for a particular slate of legislative candidates, or to argue in favor of legislation that could seriously affect the utility business, appellant may be forced either to appear to agree with TURN's views or to respond. This pressure to respond 'is particularly apparent when the owner has taken a position opposed to the view being expressed on his property.'" In this case, an instructor like the UW professor would feel compelled to respond if he were forced to include a land acknowledgement in his syllabus.

I'm guessing that this is why UW as a public university bound by the 1A only "recommends" that the land acknowledgement be included in the syllabus. Whether that recommendation combined with a ban on alternative views that UW deems to be "offensive" satisfies the 1A is not obvious to me.

The university mission I need to include in my syllabus refers to some entity they call "God." Obviously, it is a private institution. Public universities cannot require religious speech. But my main point is that the requirement is that "The university believes X", not that "I believe X." It's also not "X is the case." So it more like reporting than religious speech. Seems like the land acknowledgments are more like reporting what the university believes than having to take a position on the issue.

Quote from: downer on April 13, 2022, 05:59:21 PM
The university mission I need to include in my syllabus refers to some entity they call "God." Obviously, it is a private institution. Public universities cannot require religious speech. But my main point is that the requirement is that "The university believes X", not that "I believe X." It's also not "X is the case." So it more like reporting than religious speech. Seems like the land acknowledgments are more like reporting what the university believes than having to take a position on the issue.

If the university is taking a position on who rightfully owned the land (which is itself a controversial political stance) and advocates for the return of the land or fair compensation, then it's engaging in political speech. Because students might reasonably interpret the instructor as endorsing the university's belief due to the university using the instructor's personal intellectual property (syllabus) to convey the university's belief, then any instructor who disagrees will feel pressure to respond in order to make it crystal clear to students that the university's belief is not the instructor's belief. That's compelled political speech.

Quote from: downer on April 13, 2022, 05:59:21 PM
The university mission I need to include in my syllabus refers to some entity they call "God." Obviously, it is a private institution. Public universities cannot require religious speech. But my main point is that the requirement is that "The university believes X", not that "I believe X." It's also not "X is the case." So it more like reporting than religious speech. Seems like the land acknowledgments are more like reporting what the university believes than having to take a position on the issue.

So because the land acknowledgement is kind of vague, embodying no specific commitment to anything it's OK that they require it? That's a ringing endorsement, if I ever heard one.

Nothing I said implied the acknowledgment has to be vague. It could be a notice: "The university beileves the morally right action is to hand back stolen land to native peoples on Jan 1, 2025."

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 06:57:55 AM
Nothing I said implied the acknowledgment has to be vague. It could be a notice: "The university beileves the morally right action is to hand back stolen land to native peoples on Jan 1, 2025."

Presumably including the land on which the university sits? Stakeholders including faculty, students, etc. might want a bit of clarity on what that means. For instance, if the institution may effectively disappear in 3 years many potential students would probably pass on applying. Similarly, many potential faculty and staff might forgo applying for any advertised positions.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 11, 2022, 06:49:27 PM


It does not follow that mocking a symbolic practice necessarily means that the substantive issue to which it refers is entirely without merit

Of course not. But the way in which one mocks something communicates one's beliefs about the underlying value of the issue. I think the act of mockery here was pretty clear, and his added remarks confirm that.

Quote
UW is a public institution and thus subject to the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which, unlike free speech hellscapes like Canada, does not allow government to punish disrespectful or hate speech. The course syllabus is a curious hybrid. According to National Council for Teacher Quality v. Curators of the University of Missouri (2014), the syllabus is the intellectual property of the instructor. Therefore it does not seem obvious that a university may willy nilly decide what sort of political speech may and may not be included in a syllabus since it is necessarily associated with the instructor.

It's hardly willy-nilly. And you'll recall that SCOTUS has upheld regulations of personal conduct which nevertheless impose burdens upon free speech, provided those burdens aren't too onerous (Casey is probably the most famous case of this). In this case, since nobody is even required to include any statement, let alone a single one, exercising minimal oversight to ensure that deranged faculty don't publish offensive material seems entirely compatible with those rulings.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 12, 2022, 05:17:50 AM

What are the things that non-Indigenous people today are doing and have done that have caused harm, and how does that harm compare to governments ignoring treaties in the past, residential schools, etc.?

In this country, they include cultural genocide (remember, the last residential school closed in 1997), forced displacement, kidnapped children, medical experimentation, failure to investigate murders, the police practice of dropping Indigenous people off a hundred kilometres away without a coat in the winter (I confess I thought this was only a thing in the prairies in the '60s and '70s, but there have been recent incidents further east), failing to obtain consent or to consult about land use, etc.

How do they compare? Well, they're on the same continuum, especially since many of them are essentially the same harm (viz., ignoring treaties and violating duties to consult and obtain consent).

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 12, 2022, 05:17:50 AM

Because the economic collapse of the region would be so good for indigenous communities?

It was a joke. But if we want to take it seriously, then I strongly doubt increased taxation would lead to the region's economic collapse. It's already broken by housing prices. The average family income is something like 60k, but houses cost millions, apartments are thousands a month, and food is waaaaay more expensive than elsewhere in the country (outside of the far north). If anything is holding back economic development in the region, it's unaffordability.

Quote from: mahagonny on April 12, 2022, 07:42:23 AM
Yeah, what are we hearing from the communities that would be affected?
Most of the energy, argumentation around these social justice issues is typically coming from liberal whites, as with racial things that the USA is bickering over.

Here, they got together and officially recommended the use of land acknowledgements as an easy first step. Nobody thinks they're sufficient or the end of the story.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 13, 2022, 03:48:47 PM


This is the point; those issues are hard to fix (and will take ongoing effort, with slow progress, in perpetuity.) Crying, apologizing, and putting "land acknowledgments" on every piece of paper and webpage are, by comparison, easy-peasy, and get immediate ego-gratification rewards.

Kicking and screaming and doing everything in your power to prevent even the smallest symbolic change from occurring doesn't exactly do much for the prospects of the necessary significant changes, though, does it?

Faculty in my department say they're broadly sympathetic to the idea of including Indigenous content in their courses, but because there's virtually no such content in the discipline, it can't be done. When I have given specific examples of high-quality content that does exist and which tackles issues relevant to several of our courses, the response by individual instructors has been that that's great, but they've achieved a perfect balance in their courses and they don't want to start including new readings, since that would require a slight change in the topics they survey.

While that's entirely their prerogative, it suggests to me that their hand-wringing is disingenuous, at best. Incidentally, I have one colleague who was designing a new course who publicly proclaimed that he had looked hard but couldn't find any female authors on a topic (his PhD topic, I might add), but that if we could suggest any for his syllabus that'd be great. Off the top of my head I presented him with over thirty (I teach the subject, but it's nowhere near my PhD specialization). Not a single one made it onto the syllabus, though.

It seems to me that there's a performative kind of contrarianness and obstacle-gathering at work in many such discussions. One might even call it... vice-signalling.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 04:48:19 AM

So because the land acknowledgement is kind of vague, embodying no specific commitment to anything it's OK that they require it? That's a ringing endorsement, if I ever heard one.

But it wasn't required. You can't just make up facts to fit your feelings.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 14, 2022, 07:18:06 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 12, 2022, 05:17:50 AM

What are the things that non-Indigenous people today are doing and have done that have caused harm, and how does that harm compare to governments ignoring treaties in the past, residential schools, etc.?

In this country, they include cultural genocide (remember, the last residential school closed in 1997), forced displacement, kidnapped children, medical experimentation, failure to investigate murders, the police practice of dropping Indigenous people off a hundred kilometres away without a coat in the winter (I confess I thought this was only a thing in the prairies in the '60s and '70s, but there have been recent incidents further east), failing to obtain consent or to consult about land use, etc.

How do they compare? Well, they're on the same continuum, especially since many of them are essentially the same harm (viz., ignoring treaties and violating duties to consult and obtain consent).

Most people today are not kidnapping children, doing medical experimentation, etc.

Again, trying to get everyone to claim guilt has no relationship whatsoever to their own actions. Nearly everyone who hears about the things you have mentioned is disturbed by them and wants things to improve in the future. That doesn't require implying they are somehow personally responsible for any of those just by being non-indigenous.

Anyone who has come from a strict religious background can probably attest to the frequency of the use of guilt as a motivator. However, most charities and other organizations have been much more successful by showing people how their contributions can make things better.  Guilt makes people want to appear to comply to avoid the stigma, but often results in all kinds of secret hypocrisy.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 07:46:57 AM

Quote
How do they compare? Well, they're on the same continuum, especially since many of them are essentially the same harm (viz., ignoring treaties and violating duties to consult and obtain consent).

Most people today are not kidnapping children, doing medical experimentation, etc.

Correct. But most people alive today were alive when it did happen. The Sixties Scoop, for example, started in the 1950s and continued into the 1980s. Forced sterilization of Indigenous women continued well into the 1970s, and there are documented cases from the 2000s and 2010s, too (IIRC the most recent allegation is from 2018 or 2019).Where even a basic thing like Indigenous 'status' is concerned, women weren't fully able to 'pass' it on until 2019.

I have a friend who's in the absurd situation of having been counted as white until a few years ago, when he became (incorrectly!) counted as Métis. That's because each of his grandfathers had to renounce his Indigenous status to volunteer for WWII. Then when they returned to their reserve and had children there, those children were counted as white because they had one non-status (male) parent.

Quote
Again, trying to get everyone to claim guilt has no relationship whatsoever to their own actions. Nearly everyone who hears about the things you have mentioned is disturbed by them and wants things to improve in the future. That doesn't require implying they are somehow personally responsible for any of those just by being non-indigenous.

I don't think anyone is trying to get everyone to claim personal guilt. But fixing things is surely our collective responsibility. And we certainly can't fix things by covering them up, as the so-called 'critical race theory' bans in the US are trying to do to Black history. And we absolutely were covering things up until very recently. Our own educations can attest to that fact.

Also, most of these statements say nothing about giving the land back. They simply acknowledge that the institution sits on what once was (or in my case, still is) indigenous land. This is just a fact, the same as saying that the Britons inhabited England before the Roman invasion or that VCU Doha is located on land belonging to the country of Qatar.

I actually haven't seen any universities that advocate returning their land - where would they go? The most daring I have seen are statements that support indigenous sovereignty in territories and reservations already occupied by native peoples. Not sure what's so radical about saying that you support upholding the law. Some acknowledge that land removal was part of a larger colonial policy of genocide and/or assimilation, but, again, that's an historical fact. I don't see how requiring people to include facts about the university's history and mission violates anyone's free speech. Are we going to start rioting because we must include academic dishonesty policies, required readings, or learning objectives? 

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 06:57:55 AM
Nothing I said implied the acknowledgment has to be vague. It could be a notice: "The university beileves the morally right action is to hand back stolen land to native peoples on Jan 1, 2025."

Even mere required statements of fact (reporting what X believes) can be considered compelled speech depending on circumstance. But it is difficult to avoid viewing a statement like that in the context of a syllabus as anything other than political or ideological.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 14, 2022, 07:18:06 AM

It's hardly willy-nilly. And you'll recall that SCOTUS has upheld regulations of personal conduct which nevertheless impose burdens upon free speech, provided those burdens aren't too onerous (Casey is probably the most famous case of this). In this case, since nobody is even required to include any statement, let alone a single one, exercising minimal oversight to ensure that deranged faculty don't publish offensive material seems entirely compatible with those rulings.

Casey is not relevant since that case involved a requirement to state facts deemed to be "integral to conduct" or immediately relevant to an act (medical procedure) about to be performed (on the patient). There is no equivalent conduct involved in including a land acknowledgment in syllabus. It's an interesting constitutional question as to why a professor may mock a political position in a class discussion but not in a syllabus.

The more fundamental question is why subjecting students attending a public university to a one-sided statement in a syllabus to promote a pet political cause is good practice even if it manages to avoid the problem of compelled political speech.

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 10:09:02 AM
Also, most of these statements say nothing about giving the land back. They simply acknowledge that the institution sits on what once was (or in my case, still is) indigenous land. This is just a fact, the same as saying that the Britons inhabited England before the Roman invasion or that VCU Doha is located on land belonging to the country of Qatar.

I actually haven't seen any universities that advocate returning their land - where would they go? The most daring I have seen are statements that support indigenous sovereignty in territories and reservations already occupied by native peoples. Not sure what's so radical about saying that you support upholding the law. Some acknowledge that land removal was part of a larger colonial policy of genocide and/or assimilation, but, again, that's an historical fact. I don't see how requiring people to include facts about the university's history and mission violates anyone's free speech. Are we going to start rioting because we must include academic dishonesty policies, required readings, or learning objectives?

Yes, that's true of the statements I have heard read out. Indeed, it has felt like some kind of religious or spiritual model for the moment. People have been invited to reflect on the facts. I've found those moments puzzling. What am I personally meant to feel? Of course, participating in a benefit received on the basis of using stolen land makes us all accomplices and bad people. We should all move off the land. I do wonder what other moral or spiritual insights people are looking for. We think about it for 90 seconds and then move on. It feels more confessional than political. If the aims are political, then they should be transparently political, and demands should be voiced.

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 10:09:02 AM
Also, most of these statements say nothing about giving the land back. They simply acknowledge that the institution sits on what once was (or in my case, still is) indigenous land. This is just a fact, the same as saying that the Britons inhabited England before the Roman invasion or that VCU Doha is located on land belonging to the country of Qatar.

I actually haven't seen any universities that advocate returning their land - where would they go? The most daring I have seen are statements that support indigenous sovereignty in territories and reservations already occupied by native peoples. Not sure what's so radical about saying that you support upholding the law. Some acknowledge that land removal was part of a larger colonial policy of genocide and/or assimilation, but, again, that's an historical fact. I don't see how requiring people to include facts about the university's history and mission violates anyone's free speech. Are we going to start rioting because we must include academic dishonesty policies, required readings, or learning objectives?

As if academy dishonest policies or learning objectives are comparable. Of all the possible historical "facts" that could be included in a statement in a course syllabus, you expect us to believe that this is the one that they just happen to choose with no ideological or political motive.

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 10:46:29 AM

Yes, that's true of the statements I have heard read out. Indeed, it has felt like some kind of religious or spiritual model for the moment. People have been invited to reflect on the facts. I've found those moments puzzling. What am I personally meant to feel? Of course, participating in a benefit received on the basis of using stolen land makes us all accomplices and bad people.

That is the intent and it's ideological to suggest that you are an accomplice and therefore a bad person.

The issue of a university requiring or encouraging land acknowledgments on syllabi is a solid one of academic freedom, to be sure. It has its own interest, though it is also pretty tiresome.

But that's a very rare case. How many universities have any requirement? None as far as I know. UW has a recommendation. What is far more common in my experience is that some faculty or administrators will start off a meeting with a land acknowledgment. It is ritualistic. Why single out that issue to start the meeting with? Aren't there plenty of morally weighty issues that people could start out meetings reflecting on?

Presumably the purpose of the acknowledgments is also to start conversations such as the one we are having. And to get people to look up information. I was just reading about Land-Grab Universities.
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/land-grab-universities
That ends with this statement:

Quote"The first step is understanding and acknowledging your history, and then the second step is committing yourself to the principles on which the land-grant system was founded," said Dunn, president of SDSU. "And if you do those things, then the answers emerge."

It's an optimistic view about answers emerging. I'm not sure that's evidence-based.

Most unis have a whole page dedicated to their founding, another to their mission, more than one to their sports accomplishments, and a paragraph dedicated to a land acknowledgement. I'm not sure why it's beyond the pale to create a land acknowledgment and ask faculty to link to it or include it on their syllabi. Truth, I am much more upset about my uni's made up learning objectives and the way they affect my teaching than I am about a land acknowledgment that has no bearing on what I say in the classroom.

As for what you're supposed to meditate upon, I'm not sure you are. You seem to think these things are about making white people feel guilty. They're not about white people. They're about Indigenous people.
I agree that it would be nice if the statements would commit to educating Indigenous peoples, or maintaining a faculty position or available courses in Indigenous histories and would report on how well the uni is meeting that goal. I hope we will get there someday. But we get there by making a start, as Parasaurolophus has been saying. This is a beginning of a process, not the end. 

Oh, but such a slippery, scary slope, these beginnings...!

White people might have to admit they were wrong about something!

We can't have that!!

M.

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 10:46:29 AM

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 10:09:02 AM
Also, most of these statements say nothing about giving the land back. They simply acknowledge that the institution sits on what once was (or in my case, still is) indigenous land. This is just a fact, the same as saying that the Britons inhabited England before the Roman invasion or that VCU Doha is located on land belonging to the country of Qatar.

I actually haven't seen any universities that advocate returning their land - where would they go? The most daring I have seen are statements that support indigenous sovereignty in territories and reservations already occupied by native peoples. Not sure what's so radical about saying that you support upholding the law. Some acknowledge that land removal was part of a larger colonial policy of genocide and/or assimilation, but, again, that's an historical fact. I don't see how requiring people to include facts about the university's history and mission violates anyone's free speech. Are we going to start rioting because we must include academic dishonesty policies, required readings, or learning objectives?

Yes, that's true of the statements I have heard read out. Indeed, it has felt like some kind of religious or spiritual model for the moment. People have been invited to reflect on the facts. I've found those moments puzzling. What am I personally meant to feel? Of course, participating in a benefit received on the basis of using stolen land makes us all accomplices and bad people. We should all move off the land.

This is how it seems to me, as long as the term "stolen land" keeps coming up, as it has in this thread. If the university had a statement acknowledging that "We employ slave labor", wouldn't that require said employees to be released?  "We built the student centre with laundered money from drug cartels". Should the student centre just go on as normal?

If the institution is suggesting some sort of historical, voluntary or involuntary, complicity in crime, what's the point of doing so if it lacks any specific action of sufficient scope to count as reasonable redress?

Quote
I do wonder what other moral or spiritual insights people are looking for. We think about it for 90 seconds and then move on. It feels more confessional than political. If the aims are political, then they should be transparently political, and demands should be voiced.

That was my thought as well. To people from a religious background, the liturgical tone and ubiquity is very familiar. Used to open a meeting, it's like a call to worship. Used at the end of an email, it's like a benediction. Being able to recite it word perfect identifies someone as a member of the community.

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 11:44:22 AM
As for what you're supposed to meditate upon, I'm not sure you are. You seem to think these things are about making white people feel guilty. They're not about white people. They're about Indigenous people.

so it took about two hours for someone to prove you're wrong:

QuoteWhite people might have to admit they were wrong about something!

We can't have that!!

She was glossing your worry, not telling you how to feel.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 14, 2022, 03:17:09 PM
She was glossing your worry, not telling you how to feel.

I do not self identify racially. But I do notice that 'white' people in the past have done quite a bit of admitting they were wrong. As a result, the West doesn't have slavery any more. But they do have it in parts of Africa. Still slavery is a 'whiteness' thing, in perpetuity, the story goes.

Mamselle's corny routine is typical virtue signaling with the flip side included, out-crowd white shaming. 'I admit I am wrong! How about a round of applause for my humility!' (thanks to Steve Martin for the line)

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 11:44:22 AM
Most unis have a whole page dedicated to their founding, another to their mission, more than one to their sports accomplishments, and a paragraph dedicated to a land acknowledgement. I'm not sure why it's beyond the pale to create a land acknowledgment and ask faculty to link to it or include it on their syllabi. Truth, I am much more upset about my uni's made up learning objectives and the way they affect my teaching than I am about a land acknowledgment that has no bearing on what I say in the classroom.

However bad, learning objectives are directly related to the subject matter of the course. A land acknowledgement placed in a syllabus for a course on computer programming has no immediate relevance at all to the course. And, of course, it's not a very good argument to say that one bad practice justifies introducing another bad practice.

A university posting such a statement on its website and the like at least makes it clear that it reflects the views of the administration. To repeat, the syllabus is mostly a faculty document and faculty should not be expected to host the political statements of others.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 02:17:49 PM

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 10:46:29 AM

I do wonder what other moral or spiritual insights people are looking for. We think about it for 90 seconds and then move on. It feels more confessional than political. If the aims are political, then they should be transparently political, and demands should be voiced.

That was my thought as well. To people from a religious background, the liturgical tone and ubiquity is very familiar. Used to open a meeting, it's like a call to worship. Used at the end of an email, it's like a benediction. Being able to recite it word perfect identifies someone as a member of the community.

They are shibboleths and expecting others to participate in such quasi-religious practices makes them even more objectionable.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 14, 2022, 04:52:34 PM

Quote from: artalot on April 14, 2022, 11:44:22 AM
Most unis have a whole page dedicated to their founding, another to their mission, more than one to their sports accomplishments, and a paragraph dedicated to a land acknowledgement. I'm not sure why it's beyond the pale to create a land acknowledgment and ask faculty to link to it or include it on their syllabi. Truth, I am much more upset about my uni's made up learning objectives and the way they affect my teaching than I am about a land acknowledgment that has no bearing on what I say in the classroom.

However bad, learning objectives are directly related to the subject matter of the course. A land acknowledgement placed in a syllabus for a course on computer programming has no immediate relevance at all to the course. And, of course, it's not a very good argument to say that one bad practice justifies introducing another bad practice.

A university posting such a statement on its website and the like at least makes it clear that it reflects the views of the administration. To repeat, the syllabus is mostly a faculty document and faculty should not be expected to host the political statements of others.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 02:17:49 PM

Quote from: downer on April 14, 2022, 10:46:29 AM

I do wonder what other moral or spiritual insights people are looking for. We think about it for 90 seconds and then move on. It feels more confessional than political. If the aims are political, then they should be transparently political, and demands should be voiced.

That was my thought as well. To people from a religious background, the liturgical tone and ubiquity is very familiar. Used to open a meeting, it's like a call to worship. Used at the end of an email, it's like a benediction. Being able to recite it word perfect identifies someone as a member of the community.

They are shibboleths and expecting others to participate in such quasi-religious practices makes them even more objectionable.

Syllabi include all kinds of rote language. Is there really anybody who has been pressured to include a land acknowledgement? This reminds me a lot of the anxiety about gender pronouns in email signatures. Some people do it, some people don't. You could certainly have reasonable discussions about whether it's a good practice or helps anybody, but there's no need to pretend that somebody is trying to make you do it. There's something a little juvenile about this fear that the forces of society are trying to make you do something you don't want to do-it's very Holden Caufield.

Yes, Stuart Reges was pressured to include a land acknowledgement in his syllabus. That's what pressure is. When some start adopting a new ritual and expressing the same political message verbatim. It's really a story of DEI departments out of control.
A friend of mine retired earlier than he had planned because almost everyone in his department had BLM support messages on their desks. He could have stayed and followed suit, just to be sociable, or not, but either way, he had grown to hate the workplace because it was political.

I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

Quote from: waterboy on April 15, 2022, 06:15:05 AM
I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

No, people never fought, argued, cheated or dominated others before whites inserted themselves into the situation. There's a video somewhere of Dr. Brittney Cooper explaining. Amazing the things people learn with PhD. I should've spent more on education.

Quote from: waterboy on April 15, 2022, 06:15:05 AM
I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Bingo.

M.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 02:17:49 PM


This is how it seems to me, as long as the term "stolen land" keeps coming up, as it has in this thread. If the university had a statement acknowledging that "We employ slave labor", wouldn't that require said employees to be released?  "We built the student centre with laundered money from drug cartels". Should the student centre just go on as normal?

If the institution is suggesting some sort of historical, voluntary or involuntary, complicity in crime, what's the point of doing so if it lacks any specific action of sufficient scope to count as reasonable redress?

Oddly, I agree. Of course, tearing down the student union wouldn't help anyone. The money has been spent and the thing has been built. If the institution could afford it, I think you'd say that the right thing to do would be to donate the money to an appropriate group or cause. However, most institutions probably couldn't do that without significant, and possibly ruinous, financial hardship. It isn't really reasonable to say "well, we screwed up and accepted money from the wrong people so lots of people uninvolved in that decision are going to lose their jobs."

However, yeah, restitution is about actually taking substantial actions. It's good for people to be aware of the history behind institutions, but that isn't about wallowing in guilt-it should be about figuring out what the institutions could do going forward to address the systematic inequalities they have participated in-and often continue to participate in.

Quote from: Caracal on April 15, 2022, 09:42:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 02:17:49 PM


This is how it seems to me, as long as the term "stolen land" keeps coming up, as it has in this thread. If the university had a statement acknowledging that "We employ slave labor", wouldn't that require said employees to be released?  "We built the student centre with laundered money from drug cartels". Should the student centre just go on as normal?

If the institution is suggesting some sort of historical, voluntary or involuntary, complicity in crime, what's the point of doing so if it lacks any specific action of sufficient scope to count as reasonable redress?

Oddly, I agree. Of course, tearing down the student union wouldn't help anyone. The money has been spent and the thing has been built. If the institution could afford it, I think you'd say that the right thing to do would be to donate the money to an appropriate group or cause. However, most institutions probably couldn't do that without significant, and possibly ruinous, financial hardship. It isn't really reasonable to say "well, we screwed up and accepted money from the wrong people so lots of people uninvolved in that decision are going to lose their jobs."

However, yeah, restitution is about actually taking substantial actions. It's good for people to be aware of the history behind institutions, but that isn't about wallowing in guilt-it should be about figuring out what the institutions could do going forward to address the systematic inequalities they have participated in-and often continue to participate in.

Well, here in the USA, higher education loves paying wildly different amounts of pay for the same work where teaching is concerned as well as hoarding health insurance for some workers and keeping it out of reach for others. So, you're right if you suggest these land acknowledgements are arbitrary and meaningless without action. but to me that is the point. Higher education does not want equitable outcomes. It wants to be on the winning side in woke political (moral) causes. I don't get to write my own syllabus so i won't be including land acknowledgments in even if others are doing it. But if the college wants to confess to being crooks, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I already considered them that.

"Corny?"

Ha, I take that as a compliment.

My brother and I used to raise corn in the backyard, where we grew up, in Ohio.

M.

Quote from: Caracal on April 15, 2022, 09:42:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 14, 2022, 02:17:49 PM


This is how it seems to me, as long as the term "stolen land" keeps coming up, as it has in this thread. If the university had a statement acknowledging that "We employ slave labor", wouldn't that require said employees to be released?  "We built the student centre with laundered money from drug cartels". Should the student centre just go on as normal?

If the institution is suggesting some sort of historical, voluntary or involuntary, complicity in crime, what's the point of doing so if it lacks any specific action of sufficient scope to count as reasonable redress?

Oddly, I agree.

Why "Oddly"?

Quote
Of course, tearing down the student union wouldn't help anyone. The money has been spent and the thing has been built. If the institution could afford it, I think you'd say that the right thing to do would be to donate the money to an appropriate group or cause. However, most institutions probably couldn't do that without significant, and possibly ruinous, financial hardship. It isn't really reasonable to say "well, we screwed up and accepted money from the wrong people so lots of people uninvolved in that decision are going to lose their jobs."

However, yeah, restitution is about actually taking substantial actions. It's good for people to be aware of the history behind institutions, but that isn't about wallowing in guilt-it should be about figuring out what the institutions could do going forward to address the systematic inequalities they have participated in-and often continue to participate in.

Virtue-signalling is like moral deficit financing. People or organizations who want something now that they haven't earned take on debt. Individuals who want credit now for some action they imagine themselves doing in the future virtue-signal.

Remember in 2015 when Justin Trudeau was elected and wept for all of the oppressed groups of people he was going to help? Has his performance in the past 7 years been substantially better than all of his predecessors, say in matters like  providing  clean water and sanitation in indigenous communities?

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 15, 2022, 07:20:05 AM

Quote from: waterboy on April 15, 2022, 06:15:05 AM
I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 15, 2022, 01:19:41 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 15, 2022, 07:20:05 AM

Quote from: waterboy on April 15, 2022, 06:15:05 AM
I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

And sure, I'm an asshole for using bad words to describe someone. But if you aren't willing to apply the principle of charity to make your point, you can't expect it to be applied to you in return.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 15, 2022, 03:52:17 PM

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 15, 2022, 01:19:41 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 15, 2022, 07:20:05 AM

Quote from: waterboy on April 15, 2022, 06:15:05 AM
I've been wondering the following for quite some time: did those native peoples also fight over these lands and take them from one another? Or are we assuming all was peaceful and good?  Because if the former, then a land acknowledgement is ridiculous. And, honestly, if the latter, we're largely virtue signaling.

And I've been wondering for a long time whether some poasters care at all about productive dialogue, or whether they're just vice-signaling.

Then stop calling people who have the temerity to protest against land acknowledgments names like dickweed, asshole, and deranged.

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

And sure, I'm an asshole for using bad words to describe someone. But if you aren't willing to apply the principle of charity to make your point, you can't expect it to be applied to you in return.

You don't have tenure, do you? Is part of this that he gets to be an asshole in public, and you have to use a moniker.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 15, 2022, 03:52:17 PM

When people act like assholes, I call them so. In fact, I mostly don't, as this thread demonstrates. But if you want to make a grand public gesture out of how much of an asshole you are, you can expect strangers on the internet to notice.

As Locke observed, burning zeal bends "all its Nerves either to the introducing of Ceremonies, or to the establishment of Opinions." A bit of satire of the land acknowledgement ritual is treated like blasphemy and the guilty should be subject to Two Minutes Hate. Things might be better if all universities went back to their religious roots so that there would be no uncertainty about whether people are expected to adhere to the local dogma.

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 15, 2022, 11:29:05 AM

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 15, 2022, 08:22:07 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 15, 2022, 11:29:05 AM

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

Absolutely. Looking at an earlier post, I realized something:

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 06, 2022, 09:13:09 AM

So: as I see it, the purpose of a land acknowledgement is to prepare the ground for a genuine apology, and for moving forward productively. How and where we move forward from a land acknowledgement is, of course, a complex matter. But it's not all that different from how we respond to apologies. Some apologies are hollow non-apologies, and those aren't productive. Some are just pro-forma, and those aren't productive either. But when we receive a genuine apology, we can begin the process of moving forward.

The implication here seems to be that it's possible somehow from the expression of the apology to differentiate between words that will lead to significant action from those that won't.  Anyone who has heard enough affirmations of faith will know that's totally false. (The most obvious problem is that many who may feel totally committed one moment will fail to follow through at a later date when the cost is too high.)

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 16, 2022, 04:49:03 AM

Quote from: Anon1787 on April 15, 2022, 08:22:07 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 15, 2022, 11:29:05 AM

Complex problems that have existed for a long time rarely have quick fixes, and progress over time is incremental. But virtue-signallers want all the recognition for feeling really bad about the problems, rather than being content with whatever recognition they deserve after the long process of fixing the problems.

Affirmations of faith are easier than good works.

Absolutely. Looking at an earlier post, I realized something:

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 06, 2022, 09:13:09 AM

So: as I see it, the purpose of a land acknowledgement is to prepare the ground for a genuine apology, and for moving forward productively. How and where we move forward from a land acknowledgement is, of course, a complex matter. But it's not all that different from how we respond to apologies. Some apologies are hollow non-apologies, and those aren't productive. Some are just pro-forma, and those aren't productive either. But when we receive a genuine apology, we can begin the process of moving forward.

The implication here seems to be that it's possible somehow from the expression of the apology to differentiate between words that will lead to significant action from those that won't.  Anyone who has heard enough affirmations of faith will know that's totally false. (The most obvious problem is that many who may feel totally committed one moment will fail to follow through at a later date when the cost is too high.)

They probably figure that any sacrifice made by a university will be compensated by the government, so the worst that will be experienced is inconvenience, followed by praise for their generosity and enhanced stature. so why would the prospect of following through on the apology be frightening? Someone else will do the paying.
In terms of people caring enough to actually give something up: Imagine a legal finding that declares  Para's home is on someone else's land and must be returned. What will he do then? What any normal person with money in the bank would do. Hire a real estate attorney and fight.

This institution:

   https://thewalters.org/

has a good layout: it's an optional click-on, near the top of the main page, with a considered, well-developed text and discussion:

   https://thewalters.org/about/land/

M.

I'd like to share a brief story that I find meaningful to the discourse.

Three years ago I was asked at the last minute to make opening remarks for a campus event. At the time, our campus had no formal land acknowledgement practice, but a colleague I find to be thoughtful and engaged with student-centered practice had shared a land acknowledgement at a recent workshop. So I took a moment and (kind of clumsily) began my remarks with a land acknowledgement.

I found out later in the day that at least one indigenous student had been there, and apparently approached one of the conference organizers with tears in her eyes to comment on how she felt seen and valued by hearing that land acknowledgement. This student knew that no-one was going to be returning anything to her and her community. But she also felt like the people in power at this institution cared about her and her experience as a fellow human.

Which is exactly the point.

I've had something similar happen on tours, when I describe gravestones for enslaved blacks and the two we know of for assimilated/ acculturated/ enslaved (their histories are complex) indigenous individuals with the same level of detail and attention to their lives' stories as that given to white settlers.

And for naming them as 'enslaved,' not glossing over their condition as having been, simply, 'servants,' (which their stones do) but saying, "OK, look at how they're named. There's no last name. Do the other stones all give first and last names? So what does that really mean?"

People just want to know they're not invisible...not too much to ask, nor to hard to accommodate.

M.