Use of NDAs has created 'culture of silence and fear' on UPEI campus, former prof says

The University of Prince Edward Island has used non-disclosure agreements to create "a culture of silence and fear" on campus, resulting in a toxic workplace where staff would sooner leave the province than speak out, says a former professor.

Kate Tilleczek, who served as the Canada Research Chair in Child/Youth Cultures and Transitions at UPEI before leaving the institution in 2018, said she supported three women who ended up signing non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, after they came forward with complaints of sexual harassment on campus. 

For that, Tilleczek said she herself experienced retaliation from university administration.

"I don't think a post-secondary institution is any place for an NDA," said Tilleczek, who's now an instructor at York University in Toronto.

"We're there for intellectual openness and freedom and discovery and innovation… and I don't see how NDAs have any place whatever."

In 2013, the university acknowledged it had reached settlement agreements with two employees who had filed complaints of sexual harassment with the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission. Those complaints centred around the conduct of university president Alaa Abd-el-Aziz, who has held his post since 2010.

Neither the commission nor the university would provide specifics around the complaints — but at the time the chair of the UPEI Board of Governors, Tom Cullen, told the Charlottetown Guardian they involved inappropriate comments. As part of the settlement, the university said it couldn't comment on what costs or conditions were involved.

Tilleczek said a third settlement was reached with a former university student regarding the conduct of a professor — not the president — and she said all three settlements included NDAs.

CBC News asked the university multiple times about its use of NDAs — whether they had been used and in what circumstances, whether there is a policy to direct their use, and how much money has been included in related settlement agreements

The university did not provide a response.

CBC reached out to the three people believed to have signed the agreements, which in such cases require both parties to agree not to speak to others about what happened, and could involve compensation for what a victim has been through. Two responded to say they could not provide comment. The third person did not respond.

After the issue of non-disclosure agreements was raised in the P.E.I. legislature earlier this year, another person reached out to CBC to provide information similar to that provided by Tilleczek. She described being harassed herself at UPEI. Fearing retaliation, she did not make a formal complaint. (CBC has agreed to protect her identity.)

NDAs "are being used to silence victims of harassment and to protect the most senior [staff]," the woman told CBC.

She said some staff "have been workplace bullied and left and took the NDA because they needed the money. People are afraid to speak out and the university is using public and student money to do this."