(1) There should be a law saying that nonprofits cannot sign NDA's. They pretty much always are used to cover up misbehavior on the part of the organization, so donors and members, the principals, won't fire their CEO and other employee agents. This should not be limited to sexual harassment (whyever would it be?)
(2) The State of Texas has a rule against its universities using NDA's. Plus, the Regents must sign off on settlements. I know this because Prof. Tim Jackson just got a $725,000 settlement from the U of NOrth Texas for defamation, retaliation, free speech violation. See https://ericrasmusen.substack.com/p/u-of-north-texas-pays-prof-timothy,which links to the settlement agreement. Tim is posting the entire set of deposition videos online. They are at https://rasmusen.org/special/jackson/jackson.htm.
(3 In many cases, courts should refuse to enforce NDA's as being contracts against public policy. When their use is to cover up a crime, or when a manager uses it to cover up his incompetence, it should not be enforced.
(4) Standard evil university procedure is to do something illegal to an undesired tenured professor, expecting to get sued and lose, and then settle with an NDA.
(5) If anybody is interested in this, I'd like to draft a bill and try get my state, Indiana, to pass it. I'm at erasmuse61@gmail.com.
(This is a duplicate of what I posted at Katy's NDA Substack.)
This is fascinating. NB: I was briefly in Dallas Airport recently - if only my lay over had been longer we could have met up and chatted but as it was I got to the plane gate with about 20 minutes to spare…
It isn't just NDAs, a lot of "(client) confidentiality" and "right to privacy" sorts of things end up being abused the same way to ensure that the managers of those who abused others are not blamed, let alone punished, for failing to stop the abuse earlier. Typically an impartial investigation swiftly unearths a paper/email trail showing that there were complaints about the person for years before anything happened, but institutions always fight to prevent those sorts of investigation happening and they often use these rights to explain why the investigation would be impossible and/or why the final report must have names censored
These organisational issues is all so true and are a major problem in the UK NHS where there is also the added complication whereby organisational protection can prove to be in conflict with safe, ethical and effective patient care.
It’s complicated further by tribal effects whereby one group of professionals close ranks to protect a colleague even when it can compromise other managerial or professional colleagues.
There is also meant to be “no blame” reporting of incidents and personnel issues in healthcare as part of continuing safety and learning principles but where the matters are serious it is further complicated by fears around organisational reputation and individual or organisational litigation and/or manslaughter charges.
Thanks for the link to Damian Counsel's work - definitely worth reading. "The right to hire and fire" has been a vexed question for me my entire career (which has mainly been leadership roles) - and I think I may have been the beneficiary of the "well liked" rule at least once.
If your business has deep pockets, I think you can argue that dismissal has got a bit easier, because the unfair dismissal rules effectively all now come down to "how much will it cost me to pay you to accept?"
Confidentiality is widespread when corporations seek to settle matters internally. Under the guise of freedom to contract, most cases are resolved behind closed doors and never publicly discussed. Much of this seems to come down to bargaining power. I don't claim to have a clear solution, but it’s striking how readily we have come to accept confidentiality, even when it undermines our ability to build solidarity with one another.
Just this. It’s all very difficult. There are clearly some things which people are entitled to keep private. But if there is behaviour which endangers others…
(1) There should be a law saying that nonprofits cannot sign NDA's. They pretty much always are used to cover up misbehavior on the part of the organization, so donors and members, the principals, won't fire their CEO and other employee agents. This should not be limited to sexual harassment (whyever would it be?)
(2) The State of Texas has a rule against its universities using NDA's. Plus, the Regents must sign off on settlements. I know this because Prof. Tim Jackson just got a $725,000 settlement from the U of NOrth Texas for defamation, retaliation, free speech violation. See https://ericrasmusen.substack.com/p/u-of-north-texas-pays-prof-timothy,which links to the settlement agreement. Tim is posting the entire set of deposition videos online. They are at https://rasmusen.org/special/jackson/jackson.htm.
(3 In many cases, courts should refuse to enforce NDA's as being contracts against public policy. When their use is to cover up a crime, or when a manager uses it to cover up his incompetence, it should not be enforced.
(4) Standard evil university procedure is to do something illegal to an undesired tenured professor, expecting to get sued and lose, and then settle with an NDA.
(5) If anybody is interested in this, I'd like to draft a bill and try get my state, Indiana, to pass it. I'm at erasmuse61@gmail.com.
(This is a duplicate of what I posted at Katy's NDA Substack.)
This is fascinating. NB: I was briefly in Dallas Airport recently - if only my lay over had been longer we could have met up and chatted but as it was I got to the plane gate with about 20 minutes to spare…
It isn't just NDAs, a lot of "(client) confidentiality" and "right to privacy" sorts of things end up being abused the same way to ensure that the managers of those who abused others are not blamed, let alone punished, for failing to stop the abuse earlier. Typically an impartial investigation swiftly unearths a paper/email trail showing that there were complaints about the person for years before anything happened, but institutions always fight to prevent those sorts of investigation happening and they often use these rights to explain why the investigation would be impossible and/or why the final report must have names censored
These organisational issues is all so true and are a major problem in the UK NHS where there is also the added complication whereby organisational protection can prove to be in conflict with safe, ethical and effective patient care.
It’s complicated further by tribal effects whereby one group of professionals close ranks to protect a colleague even when it can compromise other managerial or professional colleagues.
There is also meant to be “no blame” reporting of incidents and personnel issues in healthcare as part of continuing safety and learning principles but where the matters are serious it is further complicated by fears around organisational reputation and individual or organisational litigation and/or manslaughter charges.
It’s all so bloody complicated 🤷♂️
I can imagine exactly how this goes - sounds very like academia.
You are not a fool; you are just built for honor. It's a tough road to walk.
Thanks for the link to Damian Counsel's work - definitely worth reading. "The right to hire and fire" has been a vexed question for me my entire career (which has mainly been leadership roles) - and I think I may have been the beneficiary of the "well liked" rule at least once.
If your business has deep pockets, I think you can argue that dismissal has got a bit easier, because the unfair dismissal rules effectively all now come down to "how much will it cost me to pay you to accept?"
I’ve been an admirer of Counsell’s for years.
And as a remedies lawyer - yeah, there’s a price for everything. A “reasonable fee” is what we call it in my line of work. LOL.
Confidentiality is widespread when corporations seek to settle matters internally. Under the guise of freedom to contract, most cases are resolved behind closed doors and never publicly discussed. Much of this seems to come down to bargaining power. I don't claim to have a clear solution, but it’s striking how readily we have come to accept confidentiality, even when it undermines our ability to build solidarity with one another.
Just this. It’s all very difficult. There are clearly some things which people are entitled to keep private. But if there is behaviour which endangers others…