Now There's a WikiLeaks for Colleges

Can a WikiLeaks-style site keep colleges and universities transparent and honest in their dealings? That's the hope of a brand new Australia-based website, UniLeaks, which hopes to create a safe space for people around the world to leak information about back-door shenanigans going on at their schools. The anonymous founders state that they were inspired to create the site after witnessing the "creative forms of resistance" young people in the United Kingdom took in response to government austerity measures.

According to the site's "Who We Are" section, they'll accept anonymously submitted "restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance which is in some way connected to higher education, an agency or government body working in partnership with an institution, e.g., a university." That means they want those private emails between professors, copies of shady contracts, secret research, and internal memos. Whistle-blowers can upload their documents through an encryption-free electronic drop box. The site's journalists then turn them into news stories.

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How successful UniLeaks will be at exposing unethical dealings on campus remains to be seen. The site's "Repository" is mostly empty, meaning no earth shattering leaked information has been submitted so far. But, in case you're tempted, don't send UniLeaks any salacious stories of professors sleeping with students. The site won't accept material that's "rumor, opinion, other kinds of first-hand accounts or material that is publicly available elsewhere."

photo (cc) via Flickr user sombrerero_loko