[Foundation-l] Board statement of responsibility

[Mike Godwin]

Thomas Dalton writes:

>> "Trustees agree that that, during their terms on the Board and for
>> three years thereafter, they shall not, in any communications with  
>> the
>> press or other media or any customer, client or supplier of the
>> Foundation, or any of the Foundation's affiliates, or in discussions
>> on community mailing lists, blogs, or other community forums,
>> personally criticize, ridicule or make any statement that personally
>> disparages or is personally derogatory of the Foundation or its
>> affiliates or any of their respective directors, trustees, or senior
>> officers."
>>
>> That explicitly bans all public criticism.

That is untrue.  Note the use of the word "personally" (it appears  
three times).  The idea here is actually to *encourage constructive  
criticism outside of personal attacks*. The idea here is not to make  
someone who is selected for the Board the victim of personal attacks  
from other members of the Board during their term of service and for a  
limited period thereafter.

If this guarantee is in place, one result is properly that everyone on  
the Board will feel free to criticize Board or staff operations,  
programs, and initiatives without being the object of personal  
attacks, at least from within the Board or staff, for doing so.

What's more, the obligation has a definite time limit -- if you're a  
Board member and you want to write a tell-all book about what a  
terrible person another Board member is, you can do so, but you have  
to wait a while before selling your gossip.  So, in short, you can be  
constructively critical regardless of this provision, and you then can  
engage in personal attacks after a a decent interval.

I should add that my own obligations as an attorney for the Foundation  
actually exceed those imposed on the Board.  I don't find my attorney- 
client obligations particularly onerous, and I feel free to give the  
Board and staff my critical advice, even though I'm generally  
ethically barred from writing a tell-all book about their  
personalities or posting personal criticisms on Foundation-l.    
(Believe me when I tell you that the gossip is less interesting than  
you probably imagine.) In my view, Board members are holding fiduciary  
positions -- positions of trust -- so they have legal and ethical  
obligations that in some ways are similar to attorney-client privilege  
and even similar to physician-patient privilege (as Hippocrates  
stated, one must first do no harm).

Now, you may believe it ought to be appropriate for Board members to  
attack each other personally, to attack the staff, and to attack you,  
but I hold them and myself to a higher standard, and I don't think  
it's unreasonable to set expectations for mature, considered behavior  
that extends to constructive criticism but stops short of destructive  
conflict.

Is it your belief, Thomas, that as a lawyer working for the Foundation  
I ought to be able to issue public personal attacks on Florence,  
Jimmy, Kat, Domas, Stuart, Frieda, and Jan-Bart?


--Mike