Land Acknowledgments

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

[mahagonny]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

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.

[Parasaurolophus]

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!

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...

[dismalist]

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

Net of tax. :-)

[Anon1787]

Do you genuinely not think that saying

"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.

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.)

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.

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.?

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?

[mahagonny]

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.

[Hegemony]

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.

[mahagonny]

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.

[artalot]

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.

[dismalist]

land 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

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.

[downer]

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?

[dismalist]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.