Women who signed NDAs with UPEI 10 years ago break their silence, call for permanent release
CBC
Two women who signed non-disclosure agreements with the University of Prince Edward Island a decade ago are speaking out, asking that the institution permanently release them from the threat of a lawsuit for speaking about their experiences.
CBC News isn't naming the two women because of the confidentiality agreements, commonly referred to as NDAs.
Both came forward with complaints of sexual harassment against the university's former president in 2012. Eventually they took those complaints to the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission before reaching agreement on settlements and signing NDAs with the university in June 2013.
This week a lawyer representing the two women provided CBC News with a written statement on their behalf. The lawyer said the women are not prepared to take part in an interview at this time.
In the statement, the two women said the university offered them temporary releases from their NDAs to take part in the recent review of UPEI conducted by the firm Rubin Thomlinson.
"We were completely willing to participate in the review and investigation process and to provide evidence," the statement says. "But we were only prepared to do this if we were given permanent release from our NDAs."
The temporary release the university offered, the statement continues, "does not give silenced victims their voice; rather, a temporary release… gives the victim's voice to those who ultimately control and shape the report.
"The temporary release then re-silences victims who have no opportunity to speak to the way their story might be represented or excerpted or redacted in the report."
UPEI engaged the Rubin Thomlinson LLP — the same Toronto-based law firm that conducted a workplace investigation at CBC News after the firing of radio host Jian Ghomeshi — to conduct a review of harassment, discrimination and fair treatment processes at the university after a fresh allegation of misconduct was brought forward against former president Alaa Abd-El-Aziz in 2021.
In the terms of reference for the review, UPEI also asked the firm to consider "whether the university can and should take steps to have individual complainants released from their obligations under NDAs entered in respect of allegations of harassment or discrimination."
There's no specific recommendation in the redacted version of the report that was released to the public specifying whether UPEI should permanently release those with whom the university has signed NDAs.
But Rubin Thomlinson made it clear in its report its belief that "in 2023, it is entirely inappropriate for anyone, and in particular, an institution of higher learning, to insist upon the use of an NDA in relation to the facts underlying a claim of harassment, discrimination, or sexual violence."
The report continues: "The events that happened to the survivor[s] are their story and it is part of their personal agency to be able to control when, or if, they disclose the facts of their abuse to anyone else."
In a statement sent to CBC News last week on behalf of the university's interim president, Dr. Greg Keefe, UPEI said "the university took all steps within its control to allow anyone who had signed an NDA with UPEI to participate fully in the Rubin Thomlinson review, including the complainants of a 2013 Human Rights Commission case involving the former president."
This First Person column is the experience of Shannon Flaman, who lives in Red Deer, Alta. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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