Anyone who attends a university event, browses a college website, or strolls through a city park has likely heard a Native American land acknowledgment. These statements now function as the incense of the modern academy — burned at the start of a ceremony, meant to signal moral clarity, and producing the intellectual equivalent of secondhand smoke.

Arizona State University, where I teach philosophy, posts these statements on the webpages of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the Hayden Library . The library even affirms that “we are on Akimel O’odham land, and that always needs to be at the forefront of our thinking.”

Pluralism, the real kind, permits disagreement and debate. What we have now resembles stage-managed pluralism: You read the script you are handed, or you stay q

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