This land is your land...but I'm gonna keep it

Land acknowledgments are yet another shortcut to "justice" and "equity"

Yesterday I received an alumni newsletter from my alma mater, Polytechnic School. And there it was again—that paragraph that has become as predictable as mission statements and commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. The hallowed land acknowledgment:

"We are on Tongva land. We recognize the Tongva people's resistance against displacement, erasure, and oppression by European colonial settlers. Members of the Tongva tribe are still here (those who never left and those who have returned), and we recognize them as the past, present, and future stewards of this land. As guests on these lands, we owe our commitment to caring for the environment we now share and upholding the indigenous legacy for the future generations to come."

Land acknowledgments have spread across businesses and institutions faster than free donuts disappear at faculty meetings. They adorn university websites, conference programs, and event introductions with the same formulaic earnestness. They’re meant to sound profound and morally serious, yet I can’t help but see them as profound exercises in cognitive dissonance.

Let’s break this down. Polytechnic (or Poly, as alums prefer to call it) — a school whose tuition for grades 9-12 just hit $47,100/year — acknowledges that it sits on Tongva land. Its administrators recognize the “displacement, erasure, and oppression” of the Tongva people. They even go so far as to call themselves “guests” while declaring the Tongva the “past, present, and future stewards of this land.”

Okay…

But if the Tongva are the rightful stewards of the land and members of Poly’s community are merely “guests,” what exactly does this mean in practice? Can the Tongva reclaim parts of the football field for traditional ceremonies? Can tribal members make decisions about how the campus is developed? Can they erect affordable housing for tribe members on a portion of the school’s 15 acre campus in southwestern Pasadena, where the median home price is nearly $1.9M?

Or is this land acknowledgment just empty rhetoric that makes everyone feel better without changing anything?

I think all of us (even Poly’s administrators) know the answer. The hollowness of land acknowledgments is apparent when you consider what’s not being said. There's no mention of reparations, land returns, payment of rent, or even meaningful partnerships in governance with Tongva people. There’s no explanation of how, exactly, Poly plans to “uphold the indigenous legacy.”

The reality is that these acknowledgments never venture into the truly challenging territory of what actual justice might require. It’s all abstract commitment, zero concrete action.

What’s even more absurd is that these same institutions supposedly teach students to be critical thinkers who can identify contradictions and hypocrisy — yet they model a form of peculiar doublethink that allows them to justify injustice with a straight face. It’s like stealing someone’s car and then putting a bumper sticker on it that says: “I acknowledge this is actually your car, and I recognize your resistance to my oppression in taking it. But as a guest in your vehicle I commit to keeping it clean and honoring your legacy while I continue driving it wherever I please. Namaste!”

For perhaps the most striking example of this phenomenon, look no further than Harvard University, whose land acknowledgment states: “Harvard University is located on the traditional and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett Tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself which remains sacred to the Massachusett People.”

What makes this acknowledgment particularly jarring? Harvard sits on an endowment of $53.2 billion as of 2024—the largest academic war chest in the world. The university distributes about $2.4 billion annually from this massive financial reservoir to fund its operations. Yet while Harvard “pays respect” to the Massachusett Tribe, it apparently doesn’t pay them anything else.

It’s the ultimate in cognitive dissonance: a global financial powerhouse acknowledging it occupies land that “remains sacred” to its original inhabitants while continuing to build wealth from that same land without sharing a penny of its $53.2 billion with the people it displaced (apart from “generous” discretionary gifts to members of the Native American community). Imagine if Harvard declared that just 1% of its annual endowment distribution would go to the Massachusett Tribe—that would be $24 million per year. Ah, but that would require actual sacrifice rather than merely symbolic words.

This is the essence of what frustrates me about these acknowledgments: they’re performances that allow institutions to feel progressive while doing nothing that costs anything real. They’re moral shortcuts that don’t require the inconvenience of actually changing behavior.

But land acknowledgments are just one example of a broader pattern of symbolic gestures that substitute for substantive action. Consider how many institutions claim to champion “equity” by lowering academic or job qualification standards for underrepresented groups. These policies offer the appearance of progress while absolving these same institutions from the much harder work of addressing the root causes of achievement gaps.

Let's be honest: it’s far easier to simply adjust admissions criteria than to actually invest in transforming K-12 education in disadvantaged communities. It’s more convenient to change hiring requirements than to create robust mentorship and skill-building programs that would genuinely prepare people for success. The former requires merely changing a few numbers on an application form; the latter demands sustained commitment, substantial resources, and years of patient work.

What’s truly revealing is how these policies actually betray a profound lack of faith in the very people they claim to help. The implicit message is, “We don’t actually believe you can meet the standards, so we’re just gonna lower them instead of helping you rise to meet them.” It’s soft bigotry wrapped in the language of compassion—all while allowing institutions to congratulate themselves on their progressiveness.

We saw this same pattern with movements to “defund the police” in the name of protecting Black lives. Cities that slashed police budgets often saw crime rates rise in the very communities these policies were supposed to help. The painful irony? More Black lives were lost as a result of well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided policies.

Again, it was easier to cut police funding—a simple budgetary decision—than to do the complex, nuanced, and non-binary work of reforming police departments while maintaining public safety. The former could be accomplished with a single vote; the latter requires ongoing commitment to training, accountability systems, community engagement, and addressing the socioeconomic root causes of crime. One makes for a great protest slogan; the other demands sustained, unglamorous work across multiple domains.

In each case—land acknowledgments, lowered standards, defunding police—we see the same pattern: symbolic actions that allow the actors to feel virtuous while avoiding the much harder work of creating meaningful change. It’s moral laundering—washing away complicated ethical obligations with the clean water of symbolic gestures.

These approaches share another troubling feature: they often spring from a deeply paternalistic mindset. The administrators writing land acknowledgments don't consult with tribal communities about what justice might look like. Those implementing “equity” policies rarely ask the affected communities if they want standards lowered rather than support enhanced. Advocates for defunding police frequently speak over the voices of residents in high-crime neighborhoods who want both police reform AND adequate protection.

In all of these cases, the impulse seems to be: “Relax. We know what’s best for you, and what’s best is this symbolic gesture that costs us nothing but lets us sleep better at night.”

Now, I’m not suggesting that Poly or any other institution should hand over their deeds (though that would certainly be more consistent with their rhetoric). My home sits on Salish-Kootenai land, and I’m in no hurry to return it. Because when you get right down to it, almost everyone in this country — whether they’re the descendant of White settlers, enslaved Africans, or freedom-seeking immigrants — is occupying “colonized” land. Is it practical at this point for any of us to surrender what we now regard as our own? Probably not.

What I am suggesting is that we be honest about what these acknowledgments actually accomplish: they make the acknowledgers feel better while changing nothing material for indigenous people. Given this, it seems more appropriate to say nothing than to whisper meaningless mea culpas.

If institutions truly want to address historical wrongs, they should start by asking indigenous communities what meaningful action would look like to them instead of performatively declaring themselves “guests” on land they have no intention of treating as anything other than their own.

This same approach should also apply to education, hiring, and police enforcement. Want to help underrepresented groups succeed academically and professionally? Invest in mentorship programs, supplemental education, and addressing systemic barriers to achievement—not just in lowering standards. Want to make communities safer while addressing concerns about policing? Work with communities to develop nuanced approaches that both maintain public safety and address legitimate concerns about bias and excessive force.

Until decision makers and stakeholders find the courage to match words with deeds, these land acknowledgments—and their cousins in other spaces — will remain beautifully worded substitutes for actual change. They’re the perfect symbol of our approach to moral challenges in the modern era: strong on symbolism, weak on sacrifice, and ultimately ineffective at creating justice or equity.