For years, employers have insisted that confidentiality and nondisparagement agreements be included in settlement agreements in a variety of employment disputes, such as discrimination, harassment, wage and hour, and others.

The reasoning is straightforward enough: Companies want to protect their reputations, and confidentiality/nondisparagement provisions in settlement agreements have been a way to ensure that unhappy employees do not continue to make disparaging statements about their current or former employers after the parties’ disputes have resolved. However, these provisions became particularly controversial in the wake of the #metoo era, when employees alleged these agreements acted as a manner of silencing employees from disclosing gender discrimination and harassment.