AAUP Urges Resistance to Confidentiality Demands in Shared Governance

From Chronicle.com:

The American Association of University Professors plans to urge faculty members to resist being bound by pledges of confidentiality as a condition for involvement in shared governance at their colleges.

In a draft statement released on Wednesday for public comment, the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance tells faculty members on most college committees to insist that anyone calling for their confidentiality “demonstrate that the need for secrecy outweighs the need for transparency.” Except in the case of committees dealing with personnel matters, the statement says, requirements that faculty members pledge confidentiality as a precondition for participation are “incompatible with widely accepted standards of shared governance.”