UniLeaks is to Enable Whistleblowers to SPEAK UP!

This type of channel opens when democracy declines. It is inevitable when transparency and openness are not lived by senior management in universities. Suppression of freedom of speech through fear and legal censure will not stop problems or leaks arising in respect of reputational issues. It is to include openness in the reputation that universities embrace debate, critique and alternative viewpoints as the lifeblood of innovation. They may be surprised to learn that by allowing transparency and active leadership they actually attract those who will indeed make a difference. They will be the universities that turn problems into challenges to expand potential and infinite possibilities. The fear and temptation to move into control paradigms, tracking people, monitoring staff as potential threats will not serve universities in the future as society changes. Universities are the example of democracy, they a vital, vibrant places where people can come and talk about solutions. Universities in truth can influence the very businesses that seek to use intellectual resources by encouraging them to include democracy and community in their business strategies as a means of effectively interfacing with the public and world communities.

Thus the key question for decision makers is: How to preserve and live democratic principles in light of the market based realities they are moving into that require corporate secrecy in order to compete?

I would advocate for university corporate structures to be decentralised into clusters of collaborative hubs similar to strategic business units with internal collaboration to ensure creativity, robust debate etc. When they come together it forms a democratic structure an any problems are opened to debate in the university community, make it dynamic and alive rather than repressive and secretive as this pinches off creativity and intellectual freedoms.

The same applies with complaints handling, make these processes dual feedback, inclusive and able to use what is learned to improve the university to both advance knowledge and to ensure health and wellbeing so all win.

Healthy dialogue and inclusivity will produce real results. Legal action is counter productive and expensive.

It appears unileaks has shutdown, hmmm I wonder why? Perhaps they blew the whistle on those whistling dixie, ha ha.

Continuing the growing tradition of creating whistleblowing sites in the tradition of WikiLeaks, a group of Australians have launched Unileaks in a bid to ‘keep education honest.’

Aimed, initially, at the UK and Australian higher education sector, Unileaks claims to be a ‘news organisation’ specialising in: “Restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance which is in some way connected to higher education, an agency or government body working in partnership with an institution.”

The brief appears remarkably similar to that on which WikiLeaks was founded – at least, until it stopped asking for classified information in December of last year following increased interest from US officials in the ‘Cablegate’ disclosures.

“Aside from the superb work carried out by the publisher Wikileaks, the establishment of Unileaks has been inspired in large part by recent events in the UK,” an open letter to UK university vice-chancellors reads. “Namely, the actions students have undertaken in response to the government’s austerity measures.

“The strikes, occupations and other, creative forms of resistance to neoliberalism generated by young people in the UK – many still in high school – have taken place against a background of general demoralisation within the higher education sector, and in the absence of any real or effective opposition from licensed bodies,” the group continues, before claiming that “what cannot be published in the corporate or state media will be published elsewhere, just as anger and resentment at social injustice can only be bottled up for so long before it explodes.”

While the site might have the aim of becoming an education-centric WikiLeaks, it has a long way to go. The forum – marked ‘Repository’ – which holds the ‘leaks’ is largely empty at present, with only a few pieces of information present, much of which has already been leaked on other sites in the past.

Whether Unileaks can become as infamous as its more generalised counterpart, or whether it’s destined to languish as the angry students behind the project lose interest in the game, remains to be seen.