Reges v. Cauce

── Reges v. Cauce ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: May 14, 2026 Category: General FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT STUART REGES, No. 24-3518 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:22-cv-00964- JHC v. ANA MARI CAUCE, in her official capacity as President of the ORDER AND University of Washington; AMENDED MAGDALENA BALAZINSKA, in OPINION her official and individual capacities as Director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; DAN GROSSMAN, in his official and individual capacities as Vice Director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; NANCY ALLBRITTON, in her official and individual capacities as Dean of the College of Engineering, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington John H. Chun, District Judge, Presiding 2 REGES V. CAUCE Argued and Submitted May 15, 2025 San Francisco, California Filed December 19, 2025 Amended May 14, 2026 Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Milan D. Smith, Jr., and Daniel A. Bress, Circuit Judges. Order; Opinion by Judge Bress; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge S.R. Thomas SUMMARY * First Amendment The panel filed (1) an order amending the opinion and dissent filed on December 19, 2025, and reported at 162 F.4th 979 (9th Cir. 2025), and denying a petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc; and (2) an amended opinion and dissent. In the amended opinion, the panel reversed the district court’s judgment in favor of University of Washington officials (UW) and remanded for further proceedings in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action brought by UW teaching professor Stuart Reges, alleging First Amendment violations when * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.  REGES V. CAUCE 3 UW investigated, reprimanded, and threatened to discipline him for contentious statements he made in a class syllabus mocking the University’s recommended indigenous land acknowledgment statement. Recognizing that debate and disagreement are hallmarks of higher education, the panel held that UW violated the First Amendment in taking adverse action against Reges based on his view on a matter of public concern. Specifically, the panel first held that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to UW on Reges’s First Amendment retaliation claim. Reges established a prima facie retaliation claim in that he experienced adverse employment actions, including a lengthy disciplinary investigation and reprimand, because of his protected speech. The speech was protected speech, not government speech, because Reges spoke in his own capacity as a professor, and not on behalf of his employer, and he unquestionably spoke on a matter of public concern. The panel held that UW did not meet its burden under the Pickering balancing test of demonstrating that its legitimate interests outweighed Reges’s interest in speaking on a matter of public concern in the university setting. Even assuming that more tangible evidence of disruption beyond student unrest receives further weight in the Pickering analysis in this context, the disruption alleged on this record suffered from problems of proof. Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment for defendants and directed that summary judgment be entered for Reges on his First Amendment retaliation claim. Because Reges’s viewpoint dis