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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 25. 25th September 1974
Secrecy in the university
Secrecy in the university
At the recent conference of NZ University administrators NZUSA put forward a resolution calling for universities to review the amount of information they hold confidential and to make public the findings of such a review. No one spoke against the motion, but it was still lost.
Last week, Carl Gordon of Waikato University spoke at a forum on "Confidentiality and the student". Carl's campaign against secrecy in the university administration goes back to November 1973 when as President of the Waikato University Students' Association he had an injunction imposed on him. This prevented him from attending the University Council meetings, and was sought by the Waikato University Council because he would not promise to respect the confidentiality of the private section of council meetings and confidential documents. He believes that individuals have a responsibility to breach confidentiality in the public interest if unacceptable activities are being pursued in secret.
After the forum, Salient interviewed Carl to find out what his position is in the Battle of Waikato.
Salient: What do you hope to achieve regarding confidentiality and the student?
Carl: Specifically we hope to achieve rights of access to all university documents, to attend all meetings of all university committees and to have the right to breach confidence and make public confidential documents when decisions are made in bad faith and contrary to the public interest.
In your speech you mentioned the Public Bodies Meetings Act of 1962 What does this entail?
This act has been generally used by public bodies to suppress information unneccessarily, to exclude the public and therefore to pursue undemocratic policies and procedures. This has partly been a result of a rather extreme interpretation of the act — something which the news media, particularly newspapers, have been unhappy about.
Has the media publicly denounced the act?
The Waikato Times and the Manawatu Evening Standard have both been conducting campaigns over some months now against unnecessary secrecy in public bodies. Many other papers have also commented on the problem. How have they conducted these campaigns? They have carried articles on the struggle within public bodies for greater openness and have criticised attempts to conduct the majority of business of public bodies behind closed doors. The weakness in these campaigns, however, is that they do not challenge the necessarily undemocratic structures and functions of public bodies.
What advantage is it to students if confidential documents are made open to them to read?
For students at large, the advantages in having greater access to information are that they can be in a better position to influence university policies and to expose instances of incompetence and malpractice.
Do you feel that every administration suffers from incompetence and malpractice?
It may be that some administrations have very little in fact to hide. Lindsay Wright, for one, states that this is the case at Victoria.
Why do you feel that there is this secrecy as far as documents and discussions at the council are concerned?
The emphasis on secrecy seems to partly result from a desire to seem to be doing important things and that if the vast majority of discussions and decisions were public then students would realise that they too were just as competent to run the universities as their overpaid administrators
Do you feel that the student body seems concerned about matters that involve themselves?
Where most of the confidential information is of a trivial nature and where there is no particular evidence of the sorts of double-dealings so common at Waikato it is probable that the student body is bother generally uninformed and politically apathetic about university affairs. On the other hand where students are challenging the power of university administrators and asking searching questions both academic and administrative it is [unclear: common] that in the attempts to keep students in their place multifarious subterfuges are resorted to and these are exposed, progressively more underhand tactics are resorted to by university hierarchies.
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Is any of this sort of happening evident at the moment?
This sort of vicious circle is currently evident at Waikato where the administrators increasingly sees and admits that the sources of its authority are wearing very thin and are in acute danger of being completely exposed.
How do the students feel about your court case?
Some students are uneasy about the forthcoming action in the Supreme Court at Waikato on the grounds that relations between them and their university administrators may be jeopardised. This seems to reflect an [unclear: uncrticial] attitude towards such administration and lack of awareness of the necessary functions of universities in contemporary capitalist society.
The positive component of this possibility is that more students are likely to be able to see behind the liberal facade perpetuated by this integral part of our education system, in other words, students can begin to question the institution which purports to teach them how to question and in so doing gain a clearer understanding of their world. This sort of approach is an attempt to practice the democratic ideas which are so frequently and vaguely discussed yet unable to be practised in our form of society.
How do you feel about the interim injunction on yourself?
I hope that the interim injunction which currently rests on me will have been narrowed by the end of the year.
If this happens what will you do?
I will resign from the university council, having, with the help of a great many students achieved a small advance in securing greater rights for students on university councils and for all those members of public bodies who really are concerned to serve the people they are supposed to represent.