Honesty is widely understood as an ethical imperative in science and scholarship. This article examines the operation of this ethic in an area crucial to academe but which has not received sufficient attention: faculty review of candidates seeking appointment to academic rank--in hiring and promotion--in U.S. higher education organizations. Confidentiality is a professional norm indicative of these faculty assessments. By turn, academic freedom is exercised by speaking without fear of retribution, but it is handicapped to the extent that breaches of confidentiality--an instance of professional deviance--cause a group to censor speech. The article investigates the conditions under which honesty is undermined and confidentiality transgressed in review proceedings. In addition, three social-institutional forces are theorized to account for lack of honesty in this central practice of academic life. A situation wherein honesty is systemically inhibited renders the legitimacy of academic organizations in question. The argument articulates a path of reform by spelling-out appointment criteria, professional ethics, and the means of their enforcement to maximize requisite behavior.