Nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, are quietly undermining the values that higher education claims to uphold—truth, accountability, and the free exchange of ideas. Used by colleges, universities, and education-related nonprofits, these legal tools have become instruments of control. Rather than fostering environments of transparency and ethical responsibility, NDAs are used to conceal wrongdoing, silence dissent, and protect powerful individuals and institutions from public scrutiny.
This issue is not abstract to me. Years ago, while working for a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that claimed to serve the public interest, I was forced to sign an NDA. What I believed would be an opportunity to contribute to meaningful education reform turned into a lesson in how institutions manipulate legal agreements to suppress criticism. I was not allowed to speak publicly about unethical behavior I observed—behavior that directly affected low-income students and underpaid labor. That experience has stayed with me, and it mirrors the stories I now hear from others across higher education.
In today’s academic landscape, NDAs are often imposed on staff, faculty, and students at vulnerable moments—after reporting sexual harassment, exposing fraud, or simply trying to leave a toxic workplace. Institutions frame these agreements as standard procedure, offering settlements or severance in exchange for permanent silence. The reality is coercive: speak up and risk losing not just financial security, but career prospects and professional reputation.
Faculty and staff on contingent contracts—especially adjuncts—are easy targets for this kind of legal intimidation. Graduate students, already caught in exploitative labor arrangements, are often silenced through similar means. Survivors of sexual assault who report misconduct are sometimes pushed into signing NDAs as part of resolution agreements, which then prevent them from warning others or publicly critiquing the institution's response. Even undergraduate students who face institutional failure or discrimination can find themselves legally bound to stay silent.
NDAs have also become standard practice in for-profit and quasi-profit education operations. Employees at a number of edtech companies have described being pressured into signing agreements that prohibit them from disclosing questionable practices, including deceptive marketing, inflated job placement claims, and the targeting of vulnerable students for high-interest loans. Some are warned explicitly that any public statements—even years later—could bring legal consequences.
What makes NDAs so dangerous in education is their impact on public knowledge and democratic accountability. Institutions that receive millions or even billions in federal and state funding are able to hide systemic issues from lawmakers, regulators, journalists, and the public. Whistleblowers, once silenced, are effectively erased from the narrative. Patterns of abuse continue, protected by layers of legal language and institutional inertia. Journalists investigating misconduct in higher education—including those of us at The Higher Education Inquirer—frequently encounter potential sources who decline to speak on the record due to NDAs. The agreements don’t just silence individuals—they distort the historical and ethical record.
The use of NDAs also undermines government oversight. Agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education rely on insiders to report fraud and abuse related to Title IV funding. But when those insiders are bound by NDAs, they are forced to weigh the public interest against the threat of lawsuits. In this way, NDAs shield not only bad actors but also fraudulent systems that disproportionately harm students from working-class, Black, and Brown communities.
Legislative responses have so far been piecemeal. A few states have passed laws restricting NDAs in sexual misconduct settlements, but these measures rarely address the broader use of NDAs in cases of fraud, labor violations, or institutional abuse. Nor do they cover students, faculty, or contractors who are pressured into silence outside of formal settlements.
We need stronger federal protections for whistleblowers in education. We need laws that prohibit the use of NDAs by institutions that receive public funds. Accrediting bodies must stop ignoring the use of legal intimidation as a governance practice. And we need a cultural shift in higher education—a collective refusal to treat silence as professionalism.
As someone who once signed away my voice under legal pressure, I understand the fear and isolation that NDAs produce. But I also believe that silence, when coerced, is not consent—it’s complicity enforced by power. And in a system as dependent on public trust and democratic ideals as education, that silence comes at a cost we can no longer afford to ignore.
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