Keegan,
Jimmy has attacked James on a personal level in public multiple times, and sent frankly confusing private emails to multiple people off-list. There is no general 'legal shield of confidentiality' surrounding organizations in general. Sometimes employees are forbidden from making information public due to NDA's, etc. I've never heard of a board member being asked to sign an NDA regarding information of the sort apparently contained in the email. If the particular email in question is a reasonable email, it'll silence a lot of the debate around this issue; if it's not, it'll bring up a valid question and debate as whether or not one of our fiduciaries is capable of carrying out his duties.
When Jimmy has already defamed James publicly, no counsel in their right mind would have an issue with the publication of private emails that show Jimmy behaving in a reasonable manner towards James. As it stands, there is more potential damage to WMF if the email in question is *not* released than if it is, assming it is reasonable - although I have no doubt that James would not take legal action, when you combine Jimmy's public statements with the fact that James is a doctor, a profession where confidentiality is paramount, it starts to look an awful lot like defamation per se. Besides the internal and external brand damage caused by Jimmy's actions, you don't want to be in a situation where it looks like one board member is literally commiting defamation per se against a former remember removed for "cause."
BTW: besides there being no general "legal shield of confidentiality" around organizations or boards, any lawyer worth his salt will, accurately, tell the board members he's advising that unless there is a separate legal basis for confidentiality (like an NDA signed on a grant,) that each individual trustee is positively obligated to release information about their organization or obtained from board meetings if they believe that doing so is in the best interests of the organization. Releases of information should normally be coordinated with other trustees and with comms staff, but if you end up in a situation where you disagree with the rest of the board about whether or not it's in the best interests of an organization to release information, there's not a separate legal basis for confidentiality (and there normally isn't,) and you feel that releasing the information is going to cause more benefit (or avert more harm) to the organization than whatever damage it may do to the cohesiveness of the board, you are obligated to release that information.
But that is pretty irrelevant when we're not dealing with issues that really deal with the board as a whole, just an individual email that doesn't contain confidential information between two board members. Jimmy has no legal obligation to keep it confidential, or to seek the permission of the rest of the board to release it. Neither does James - he could release it this second if he decided to, but values privacy enough that instead of doing so he's asking Jimmy to follow through with his promise of radical transparency.
---- Kevin Gorman
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 11:11 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Kevin Gorman kgorman@gmail.com wrote:
Jimmy, given the fact that James has requested you release it combined
with
the fact that it contains no confidential information, please release the particular email James requested you release. You've said that you would release it when you received permission from the board, but it was a private communication between James and you that did not contain any confidential information. The combination of private emails from you to Pete, me, and I suspect the email James refers to, combined with your public statements, makes me honestly have serious doubts about your
ability
to place the interests of the WMF above your personal interests,
something
your position requires you do.
I'm expecting no bombshells in the email - I imagine it's just insulting
or
untrue language directed at James - but you can't keep claiming to be an advocate of radical transparency while refusing to release emails that don't contain confidential information that shine light on an issue of public contention. In three seconds, you could demonstrate that my concerns are unfounded and that your email was reasonable, and with a little more you could demonstrate that there were defensible reasons for removing James in the first place.
Kevin,
You've been touting your experience on Boards in giving advice, and I have some experience there myself, so let's think of it in those Real World terms:
Regardless of what anyone's personal opinion on what may or may not be confidential, what may or may not be an insult or personal attack, what may or may not be etc., there is a very real legal shield of confidentiality in place not just for this board, but for any semi-professional organization that exists because personal opinion does not matter in the eyes of the law.
Multiple people are asking why James was removed. The answer has been given: the Board felt that they were unable to work with James, and due to the privacy of Board work, nothing can be disclosed further. While this answer is frustrating in a movement where we demand transparency for trust and collaboration (as we should), for Jimmy or anyone else to comment further would be - as an understatement - a poor decision, and one I'm sure Counsel would drop their jaw over, if not outright resign their position.
If you were in the same position, you'd do the exact same thing. If you didn't, you'd be opening up a hole for a lawsuit that you can drive a truck through. And that lawsuit and hole, friends, is what will be the death of the Wikimedia Foundation. Not this.
-- ~Keegan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email address is in a personal capacity. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe