You discover a bag full of records in the basement of the company you are working for as a corporate archivist. On the face of it, it is clear that the documents contain very sensitive information on slush money paid by your company and bribery by the Chief Executive Officer. Apparently, the bag has been put there to be destroyed or to be put out in the trash. What do you do?
The position of an archivist within a private corporation is, by its nature, an unbalanced relationship. In a public archive there is traditionally a triangular relationship between the employer or institution, the document creator, and the document user, with the archivist in the center of the triangle. Although it can be tricky to work within this triangle, with all parties having different needs and priorities, the separation of the institution and the document creator provides the archivist with the distance they need to perform their work ethically. When the document creator, document user and employer are all the same, as in a corporate archive, the triangle becomes very unbalanced, severely limiting the archivist’s autonomy. The question then becomes, do archivists have an ethical code that compels them to take actions that may threaten their position as a corporate employee? I believe that they do. The above dilemma places the archivist directly in the middle of the opposing forces of instuitional obligation and ethical responsibility. However, in this case I would argue that the path is clearer than most. Something clearly illegal has taken place and the archivist runs the risk of being viewed as complicit in hiding evidence unless they come forward. If this were me, I would keep the records, make a detailed note of what transpired, and contact my supervisor and possibly the police.
In Dingwall’s article, they argue that archivists are professionals, not merely employees, and therefore follow specific professional ethical standards. As a profession, archivists often struggle to demonstrate their value to individuals and to society as a whole. Standards are important to codify behavior, helping archivists to navigate difficult ethical decisions while helping the general public to understand what archivists do and why it matters. While these standards aren’t as long-standing or firmly entrenched societally as that of a doctor or a lawyer, archivists must follow these codes in order to increase public trust and professional visibility. The Society of American Archivists (SAA) “Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics” contains some guidelines that provide context to this ethical dilemma. It states that archivists “should embrace principles that foster the transparency of their actions and that inspire confidence in the profession,” (2020, p.5). Transparency is the key to moving forward ethically in this dilemma, the archivist must shine the light on the attempted destruction of sensitive information and alert higher-ups to what has transpired. By taking this action they are working as a professional archivist, stepping beyond their role as an employee.
Under the subheading of accountability, the SAA “Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics” states, “by preserving records of societal experiences, functions, activities, and decision-making, archivists provide important resources for contemporary and future entities seeking accountability” (2020, p.2). By allowing the records to be destroyed, the archivist is preventing future accountability for criminal activity. This type of erasure is anathema to the overarching goal of archives of providing the most complete historical record that they can. It’s always hard to know what a record may be used for in the future, although in this case a legal case seems like an obvious possibility. An archivist must strive to keep a wide variety of documents to account for future possibilities. The subheading of accountability continues, “In the private sector, archival documentation assists in protecting the rights and interests of consumers, shareholders, employees, individuals, and communities” (2020, p.2). By hiding the criminal actions of one member of the company, the archivist would be interfering with the rights and interests of everyone else whose life is touched in some way by the company. In my research, I was curious to read about the Chiquita Banana archives being seized by the National Security Archives in a criminal case against the company executives. I was shocked to see that the corporation had kept so many incriminating documents; without a robust corporate archive these crimes would not have been exposed. In this case, protecting and maintaining a corporate archive led to accountability for criminal actions.
The SAA “Core Values Statement” subheading Social Responsibility states that “undergirding the professional activities of all archivists are their responsibilities to society and to the greater public good” (2020, p. 4). Similarly, the ACRL “Code of Ethics for Special Collection Libraries” states “practitioners have a responsibility to center ethical practice in decision-making, resisting pressure to sacrifice values for the sake of pragmatism whenever possible” (2020, p 2). As doctors follow the ethical code “First do no harm”, archivists must be sure that their actions contribute to the public good. Hiding criminal actions might be good for the individual criminal but it is bad for society and detrimental to reputation of archivists as professionals that can be trusted to hold to a high ethical standard. Concealing criminal activity is also damaging to the professional reputation of the individual archivist. While the archivist may end up losing their job for whistle blowing (and could keep their job if they remain silent about the records), I can’t imagine that anyone would hire an archivist who was known to cover up criminal activity if they ever needed to move to a different place of employment. In order to uphold personal and professional standards of social responsibility, the archivist must come forward with the concealed papers even though it may make things more difficult for them personally and professionally.
The SAA “Code of Ethics for Archivists” subheading “Security and Protection”(2020, p.6) offers another argument to support safe-keeping the damaging records. When an archivist is hired by a corporation, their job is to protect and maintain documents that are important and pertinent to the history of the institution. This is their purpose they have a responsibility to fulfill it. By allowing important records to be destroyed they are operating in breach of their professional contract and in opposition to professional standards that insist that the archivist’s prime responsibility is to the records themselves rather than their employer.
Finally, this dilemma presents a real legal danger to the archivist. No job is worth being arrested for, especially when the archivist had no part in the crime. While the corporate archivist is an employee, unquestioning devotion to the corporation would mean the archivist’s self-sacrifice. In this case, the archivist needs to be transparent about the attempted destruction of criminal evidence, it is the ethical and legal thing to do. While whistleblower protection laws mean that the archivist cannot be fired for reporting illegal conduct by an employer, there may be other types of internal retaliation. However, by following archival ethical standards, the archivist can move on to another job with an unblemished record—not doing damage to their own professional reputation or to that of archivists in general.
References
Association of Canadian Archivists. (2017, October 18). ACA code of ethics and professional conduct, 1-5.
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2020). ACRL Code of Ethics for Special Collections Librarians, Retrieved April 28, 2020 from https://rbms.info/standards/code_of_ethics/
Dingwall, G. (2004). Trusting archivists: The role of archival ethics codes in establishing public faith. The American Archivist, 67(1), 11–30. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.67.1.mw0914r2p52xx2t4
Dooley, J. (2013, February 14). Should a legal right to “archival priviledge” be established? Off the Record. https://offtherecord.archivists.org/2013/02/14/should-a-legal-right-to-archival-privilege-be-established/
Evans, M. (2017, May 18). Chiquita papers are key evidence in International Criminal Court filing. National Security Archive. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/colombia-chiquita-papers/2017-05-18/chiquita-papers-are-key-evidence-international-criminal-court-filing
Society of American Archivists. (2020, August). SAA core values statement and code of ethics. Retrieved April 28, 2022, from https://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-core-values-statement-and-code-of-ethics (Links to an external site.)