Columbia University satire student paper The Federalist has long relished triggering readers, particularly conservatives. When it mocked the murder of Charlie Kirk, it shrugged off objections and suggested that people need to get a sense of humor. However, the paper has now apologized for something beyond satire: land acknowledgments. The editors issued a cringing apology for a joke about land acknowledgments. It appears that, unlike political assassinations, land acknowledgments are simply not laughing matters. It pledged to focus on something called “punch-up humor” that picks only on “people and systems in positions of power.”
The editors removed a column titled “I Lived It: Before We Had Sex, My Boyfriend Said a Land Acknowledgment.” It posted a statement on its Instagram page that the article “upset many members of the Columbia community and handled a sensitive topic rashly and irresponsibly: the important recognition of the native land Columbia University and much of our country sit on.”
We take full accountability for the weight of our harmful words, and we thank Columbia’s Native American Council, as well as other members of the community, for bringing this to our attention. We deeply apologize for any harm this article caused, and we are taking this moment to refine our humor guidelines to ensure that our mission of satire does not hurt communities and voices that should uplifted.
In a moment like the one we are currently living in on a campus like ours, political satire is more important than ever, and we would like to reaffirm our commitment to uplifting marginalized voices in this endeavor.
It was a telling moment in higher education, with institutions fighting to coerce faculty members and students to engage in what critics call a woke, performative moment before meetings, classes, and events.
Recently, the University of Washington settled a case after burning a fortune on litigation over a professor’s dissenting view of land acknowledgment.
We previously discussed the case of Professor Stuart Reges, who teaches at the computer science and engineering school of the University of Washington. He refused to post the school’s “land acknowledgment” and instead posted an alternative statement. Professor Reges sued the university and various officials in 2022. Professor Reges has declared, “Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court.”
After the university encouraged faculty to add a prewritten “Indigenous land acknowledgment” statement to their syllabi, reading:
“The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.”
Reges decided to write his own statement:
“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.”
The labor theory (which I teach) generally refers to John Locke’s theory. In his Second Treatise, Locke laid the foundation for property as a divine gift of God that began in the state of nature, where all was created in common by God. Reges declared that these tribes, indigenous people, “can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land and that the claim of the university land was not sufficiently used or developed to bestow a claim upon the Coast Salish people. That acknowledged group is a broad collection of different groups with ethnic or linguistic associations.”
In his lawsuit, Professor Reges detailed how, after he stated his own views, the university moved against him.
Reges noted that the university allowed other professors “to include modified statements in their syllabi that were more consistent with the University’s recommended statement.” The operative point is that “other faculty at the Allen School continue to include land acknowledgment statements in their syllabi that differ from the University’s own statement, so long as they express a viewpoint consistent with the University’s recommended version.”
That ended up costing the public a massive amount of money in Washington, but none of the faculty or administrators responsible for this conflict incurred any penalties or costs. Indeed, they were heralded for their struggle in favor of land acknowledgments.
Given such efforts, it is clear that many in academia will not tolerate any jokes, let alone alternatives, to land acknowledgments. It is part of the ideological echo chamber of higher education. The joke, however, is on these forces of orthodoxy. Forcing public apologies with public acknowledgments only undermines efforts to get people to consider the history of Native peoples.
Many of us support discussion and recognition of the history of native peoples. We simply oppose mandatory land acknowledgments, including “voluntary” systems that bar alternatives or coerce participation. As for the cringing editors of The Federalist, they supplied the greatest satirical moment after claiming a mission to “doggedly pursue the truth in its most raw, exaggerated, hyperbolic, blatantly untrue form.”
Some matters in higher education are simply beyond satire, and that is a truly pathetic acknowledgment.
AI Overview
George Washington issued the password “Victory or Death!” for the secret crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776.
During the treacherous operation and subsequent surprise attack on Trenton, Washington and his officers gave several critical directives:
• Absolute silence and order: Soldiers were strictly ordered to maintain complete quiet so the enemy would not discover the landing.
• Synchronized watches: All officers set their pocket watches to Washington’s time to keep the scattered units coordinated through the severe winter storm.
• Gear requirements: Every soldier carried three days of rations and forty rounds of ammunition.
• March objectives: Units were ordered to assemble by sunset, complete the river crossing by midnight, and march ten miles to strike the Hessian garrison before dawn.
Reges is correct. The labor theory of property derives from the woke left’s saint, Marx. Can’t have it both ways. But if you’re sincere, talk is cheap. Give the land BACK. But first tear down and destroy everything white culture built on it.
Good point on the nature restoration thing. I’m also curious why the woke don’t include the Cheyenne in their “give back” bleating. The horse “modernized” that tribal nation. The animal let those native Amerians to dominate other tribes militarily and economically.
Compelled speech is not free speech. If a professor wants to include a land acknowledgement, fine. Knock yourself out. Likewise, if a different professor wants to include a different land acknowledgement or none at all, that is just as valid a position. Personally, I think they are silly. Why not acknowledge the saber tooth cats, mastadons, giant sloths, or mammoths that the native Americans slaughtered and displaced as the original inhabitants? Makes about as much sense.
I’m an American. My ancestors first arrived here in 1607. I want my country invaded, conquered, and taken over by apatrides, people who are not Americans, people who were denied admission to obtain citizenship, and various and sundry other foreigners and illegal aliens, past and present. I want foreigners and illegal aliens to vote in my country. I want to give all my money and private property to parasitic foreign invaders as “free stuff,” “free status,” welfare, affirmative action, and governmental taxpayer charity. I want to give my country away. Those are my deepest longings and greatest desires as an unhyphenated and patriotic, actual American.
Columbia and all the elite, elite-adjacent & the elite aspirational schools have a fundamental problem that the satirical joke about the girlfriend deals with precisely. Unless you are going to return the land and vacate the schools, cities, towns and settlements that have ocurred since said lengendary land stewardship (which is easily debatable at best), then this is the same debate as bringing back the Neanderthals through the laboratory. The government funded the critical theory lunatics who are now tenured and screwing with young minds & the elites are too stupid to gain awareness. But hey if they cleaned up their act who else would we laugh at?
Land acknowledgement as applied looks too much like the doctrine of original sin. On the religion side that article of faith is for voluntary choice. On the speech side, coming from government through a public university as policy expressed as viewpoint discrimination, no. Among We The People, our First Nations people are the only group that holds three, not two, citizenships. Tribal, State and Federal. Yes, there are citizens that have dual national citizenship giving three, but that is the same concept of national sovereignty that the Constitution is built on. Ask Oklahoma about their having to adjust to the primacy of tribal law on the reservation in Indian Territory in the areas of family and criminal law. There’s your land acknowledgement. I’m skeptical that land acknowledgment is a standalone wholesome do good initiative. I see a bigger picture that is a shopping basket of open borders, turning sovereignty into Silly Putty, dismantling the Constitution, and along with it certainty of title to property, real, personal and intangible. And why Vice President J. D. Vance told Europe about the disharmony between our values and theirs at the Munich security conference. Beyond that is a point Jonathon mentioned. The value of history. We don’t know what we are acknowledging in a land acknowledgement because we don’t know the whole history of first nations. It’s not just a mindset of who we found was here from coast to coast before any European footprint. Nothing yet explains how the Maya civilization is the only other culture to discover the number 0 to apply in math besides India. Nor how they developed a complete written language. Nothing explains by whom or how Peru’s Machu Picchu was built. Here we still don’t know why we find works like Chaco Canyon and Mesa verde. Nor why they are where they are. And equally important, what views they had about one group displacing another at a given place. The same as we know happened around the world in its overall history.
Boston’s MassPort is running a competition to be “the Voice of Logan Airport.” A [boring] prepared script is provided but contestants are told that multiple, amended or other original scripts will be considered. How’s this for a start for an alternative script:
“Welcome to Boston’s Logan Internationa Airport. You are standing on the stolen lands of the Massachusetts, Pawtucket, Wampanoag and Nipmuv tribes and they want them back.”
Tell them to bring their deed with survey and we’ll talk.
Does this satirical paper include a name acknowledgment, as they clearly stole that.
Press Rebuttals of: Satire | I Lived It: Before We Had Sex, My Boyfriend Said a Land Acknowledgment
By Julia Ryan – columbiafederalist.com ~ Sep. 28th 2026
Press Rebuttal:
Vibe Shift: Self-Awareness Triumphs at Columbia
Student paper conquers satire with ‘stolen land’ sex apology
By: Andrew Stiles – Freebeacon.com ~ October 2, 2026
https://freebeacon.com/satire/vibe-shift-self-awareness-triumphs-at-columbia/
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FYI: (various) University land acknowledgements/Programs
Nice Plaque. Now What?
Every time Columbia University opens an event with a land acknowledgement, I find myself asking “what comes next?” The university publicly claims to recognize that it sits on Lenni Lenape land, but beyond symbolic gestures, there is little to show for it.
Written By Jasmine Lianalyn Rocha – cpreview.org ~ September 22, 2025
https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2025/9/nice-plaque-now-what
The Land Acknowledgement at Columbia University
Performance and/or Activism?
By: Harrison Gerson – Moring Side Review ~ 2023-10-24
[Link] journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/TMR/article/view/9815
PDF: [Link] journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/TMR/article/view/9815/6050
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Harvard University: Acknowledgment | Gender Action Portal
A RESOURCE CREATED BY: Women and Public Policy Program
GAP, WAPPP, and the Harvard Kennedy School are located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded homeland of the Massachusetts people, the surviving descendants of the first people of Massachusetts and of the Neponset band of the Massachusetts. We honor this tradition and work toward a gender equity agenda that addresses the needs of all women, including Indigenous women and Indigenous communities.
The purpose of land acknowledgements is to create broader public awareness of the true history of the land, begin to repair relationships with Native communities and with the land, inspire ongoing action and relations, support larger reconciliation efforts, remind people that colonization is ongoing and Native lands are currently occupied by Indigenous and non-indigenous people, and to take a cue from Indigenous protocol by opening space with reverence and respect.
Resources for Land Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the organizations and people whose work guided the crafting of our land acknowledgement, including the work of the Harvard University Native American Program and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, as well as a land acknowledgement written by the Wellesley College Native American Student Association. Thank you to Harrison Nekoroski from the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Harvard Kennedy School for crafting the statement on the purpose and importance of land acknowledgments.
To hear more, we suggest this land acknowledgment given by Elizabeth Solomon, Assistant Director of Academic Affairs at Harvard Chan School’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and a member of the Massachusetts Tribe at Ponkapoag at the Chan School’s convocation in 2018. For those looking to learn more, we also recommend Native Land for both its map of Indigenous nations and its extensive resources page.
[Link] gap.hks.harvard.edu/land-acknowledgment
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[FYI: George Washington University]
MIPP Program – Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
(circa) November 12, 2020
GW has recently started sharing it’s land acknowledgement before many of our presentations and forums. If you are not familiar with the land that the GW foggy-bottom campus was built upon, here is some information:
This land acknowledgement is borrowed from our friends at the AT&T Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy at the George Washington University:
“The AT&T Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy (CIPP) acknowledges that it resides on the traditional and ancestral homelands of
the Piscataway and Anacostan peoples, who have served as stewards of the region for generations.”
The AT&T CIPP is located on The George Washington University’s Foggy Bottom Campus in downtown Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia borders the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, a historic center of trade and cultural exchange between several tribal nations. For generations, the Piscataway and Anacostian Peoples have resided in this region and served as stewards of the local land and waterways. Their people continue to thrive in the region and still honor and celebrate their culture and relationship with the land.
[Link] acebook.com/mippgw/posts/pfbid035MFJXNMoCjrrbda62DVHi28hckyFTv7msF3qPseBGEM4Ve64CnabjZsZo93tLcmpl
[Link] cps.gwu.edu/att-center-indigenous-politics-policy
[Link] cps.gwu.edu/new-website-launched-att-center-indigenous-politics-policy
Many of us support discussion and recognition of the history of native peoples.
Bacteria called and they want their land back considering they existed 3.5 Billion years ago.
NB: Viruses predate bacteria but the former are parasites in that they require a host to replicate. Their similarities to leftists academic types is not a coincidence.
Administering a booster vaccine of an episode of a Rush Limbaugh show will protect them (and us) from their lack of gratitude towards America
Estovir,
“Their similarities to leftists academic types is not a coincidence.”
HA!
Good one!
I got news for the Indian nations: you murdered each other for the land, and we murdered you, but we ended the cycle of violence. Do you really think you’d keep it for long if we just swam back to Europe? Do you really think you’d have any rights to speak of if the Han Chinese, or the white Russians, or the Farsi Persians took it after we were gone? And they would if they could. You wouldn’t stop them. You’d just be another version of Uyghurs or Kurds or Chechens.
My part of this Country lost the American Civil War. We got with the program, and now almost nobody wants the Klan or the Confederacy back–despite the best efforts of Black Lives Matter.
Get with the program and stop listening to white-liberal idiots like Billie Eilish. She’s not giving it back. It’s just a performative con for fake intellectuals.
I’m kind of sorry for punching hard, but sometimes you have to just to register with people.
Actually it’s long past time that we should have been punching much harder. Had we done so years ago, we might not have had to put up with this crap today
Yes
What idiots. Or was their apology in itself satire: We are sorry our satire offended those to whom it was directed because as satirists, we never want anyone to feel uncomfortable.
Note to Jonathan Swift–the English landowners are still waiting for their apology.
oops—hate Anonymous. That was my comment.
“I Lived It: Before We Had Sex, My Boyfriend Said a Land Acknowledgment.”
For once, Ivy league higher education gets something right and for a brief moment, a sense of humor.
You cannot own land, you can only encumber and occupy land. As you grow long in tooth, times change, land values fluctuate. Government promotes the idea of growth and development for taxation is what supports it. As value plummets and taxes rise, properties become neglected. The land grows fallow and nature creeps back to reclaim. You can’t own land, you can only buy the right to occupy it and abuse its resources.
Ditto: You can extend this by stating: “You only Rent this Life”.
With your soul as a rent retainer to Satan. If you’re pure of heart and soul and a person of goodness, you will cheat him of his rent.
I’m thinking these kids at Columbia wish they had the condones to do what Mark Rudd did in 1968 but instead, they do virtue signaling
How about we give Manhattan island back to the Indians Mandan would be out of a job!
It’s all about victimhood. virtue is finding victims and identifying with their victimhood because the entire left feel like their being victimized by all this freedom of opportunity.
The natives stole this land from the Mammoths first.
Where’s their acknowledgement?
Wonder what language they spoke?
The “Indians” probably stole it from earlier “Indians”. The whole concept of “land acknowledgments” is ludicrous. How ironic. University campuses used to be where true free thinkers were found. Now they are home to fascistic thought police.
If possession of the land bothers them so much, then why don’t the guilt ridden, virtue signaling, verbal flagellationist slugs just give the land back or pay rent to prove their true convictions? Does anyone at Columbia suggest paying a fair rental out of the University’s endowment? But then, to whom would the rent be paid? How about paying into a general fund for the benefit of all residents of “tribal reservations.” But none of the slugs suggests doing that either. SO: As far as I am concerned, the USA settled the land by conquest and it belongs to those in possesion by right of that conquest. I challenge anyone to try to take it back. Did the most of the tribal occupants of the land get a raw deal? Yes. Just shows one cannot trust most treaties or rely on the “virtue” of those who hold power in government. But one must keep in mind that those earlier occupants likely took possession of the land by conquest also. Thus: the slugs should spare us all their proforma guilt trip.
It would be interesting if universities/colleges would drop all courses related to social injustices but offered elective’s in home and appliance repair, balancing checkbooks and debt avoidance. You know real life stuff, maybe more students would be more susceptible to listening more versus “shouting down”?
“It would be interesting if universities/colleges would drop all courses related to social injustices”
You mean history. Don’t worry, Trump and DeSantis are all over it.
I don’t think it was Trump and DeSantis that removed the Confederate historical monuments, Statues of Christopher Columbus, and the historical Veterans Cross etc., now did they? Did you mean that history?
You should be examining the ones who erected those monuments, long after the treasonous war they fought in to preserve slavery. It’s only natural that those aligning themselves with Trump would support the Lost Cause.
Trump and DeSantis are not the ones rewriting history.
Living in Florida, I see DeSantis and his actions up close. One of his first acts during his first term was to posthumously pardon the Groveland Four. Look them up if you want to know. Now, all references to the Groveland Four have been removed from Florida textbooks. Removing history is rewriting it, if all that’s left are the lies.
Enigma, I live in Florida as well, but my eyes aren’t the same as those who claim victimhood whenever they can.
Blame yourself and your Woke friends for the victimhood you claim, which is propped up by your Woke ideology. The laws simply stop schools from blaming modern students or making them feel guilty for bad things people of their race did in the past. The important issue is that the Florida statute explicitly mandates the teaching of African American history, civil rights atrocities, and state-level tragedies. DeSantis expended considerable capital when, as governor, he posthumously pardoned the Groveland Four. It was the right thing to do, and DeSantis did it.
The Groveland Four aren’t in Florida history books, neither are dozens of events that took place in Florida. Yes, he required teaching of African American history, but only the watered-down version. He also requires nothing be taught that might make white people feel bad. Nothing was ever taught aimed at modern students.
To you, everything is watered down unless it is Woke and exacts revenge on white people.
“The Groveland Four aren’t in Florida history books . . .” “[DeSantis] also requires nothing be taught that might make white people feel bad.”
Beware the Eternally Aggrieved. Their grievance industry is fed by lies. (Smollett)
The book on that tragedy, _Devil in the Grove_, is in fact taught in Florida history and literature courses.
It’s odd you’d mention that case, while ignoring the fact that the DeSantis administration issued their pardons and ordered restitution of some $4 million to the families of those four.
First of all, I did mention that one of DeSantis’s first acts was to posthumously pardon the Groveland Four.
“Living in Florida, I see DeSantis and his actions up close. One of his first acts during his first term was to posthumously pardon the Groveland Four. Look them up if you want to know. Now, all references to the Groveland Four have been removed from Florida textbooks. Removing history is rewriting it, if all that’s left are the lies.”
Secondly, attached is a searchable index of the 2026 Florida Social Studies requirements. I challenge you to find either the Groveland Four or Devil in the Grove (an excellent read which helped start my journey to explore history).
https://cpalmsmediaprod.blob.core.windows.net/uploads/docs/standards/best/ss/ssstandards202607.pdf
It is true that an overachieving teacher could go beyond the standard requirements. But Florida teachers teaching anything that might make white people look bad (as Devil in the Grove does) is to risk their careers in Florida.
“Living in Florida, I see DeSantis and his actions up close.”
Enigma: But he supports Trump, so you can’t help but trash him. I also live in Florida, and he has been an excellent governor. He doesn’t control such local community actions, nor should he. Community standards enter into such decisions, but with your anti-white and woke views, you make it more difficult for differences of opinion to come together.
You want me to pay reparations for slavery when my family wasn’t here. Instead, they were being murdered in Europe. You complain, but there is no action from you. The teachers can teach the book if they want to, and you can provide it, but you want to get even with the white guy, even one who has no connection to slavery or Jim Crow.
Ask Sam for some ideas, as he was an educator and is quite astute.
Devil in the Grove isn’t in school libraries in Florida though it is still available in public libraries. Here’s what I got when I searched for it:
None of the search results include:
Florida K–12 school library catalogs
Florida district media center holdings
Any school‑level OverDrive/Sora collections
This absence is meaningful: if a book appears in public library OverDrive catalogs, it will normally also appear in school catalogs if the district licenses the same collection. Here, it does not.
To this parasite, “social injustice” means “I covet.”
I want your money and your status.
This parasite should pay reparations for all the “social compensation” he and his ilk have been granted for centuries now.
I hear Zimbabwe is nice this time of year.
MB,
Not just universities or colleges.
Public education too.
I have met more than a few who were completely clueless about how the real world works.
But they sure could “game” for hours on end. And if they cannot microwave it, it cannot be eaten.
@Upstate
At this point, even microwaving is probably too much to ask. 😂
Future historians do not have to worry about how to characterize the United States in the early 21st century. It will be known as the age of extreme stupidity, characterized by the collapse of rational education.
And yet here all are in 2026 enjoying the fruits of education, or better said, the lack of one.