Adventures of a Small-Time Whistleblower: Whistleblowing and Social Activism

Whistleblowing and Social Activism

Whistleblowing is fraught with uncertainty. We are troubled by questions. Were the whistleblower’s intent were pure enough[1]? Was the misdeed bad enough to justify betrayal of his colleagues[2]? Was his proof was sufficient[3]? Did the organization really retaliate against him[4]?

Clarity seems possible in restricted cases. HomeFirst’s violation of California licensing rules, for example. My external disclosure followed months of inaction by management. I acted after lengthy research on the law and the company’s actions. The Board decided to fire me two days after I revealed my disclosure. Pretty clear.

Also straightforward: Katrina Brown, a Detroit teacher, complained about lead- and copper-tainted water at John R. King, a K-8 where 98% of students are black and 71% are poor. She became vocal about overcrowding and overheated classrooms. That triggered reprimands, a poor performance review, and transfer to a school far from her home. Then she was fired.

Where wrongdoing is widespread, things get trickier. Brown’s April 2016 objections to King school conditions fell on the heels of district-wide teacher protests over racially biased uses of dwindling resources. HomeFirst’s licensing violation was just one of eight infractions I disclosed externally[5] and a longer list of compliance violations discussed with the Board two months before my final day.

Multiple misdeeds can emerge from a culture that encourages wrongdoing[6]. We saw that in Enron. More recently Wells Fargo’s culture was blamed for its wide-spread false-accounts scandal. Then came evidence that Wells had vastly understated the extent of that fraud. And evidence that it charged borrowers for insurance they had not requested. And it improperly changed mortgage terms. Only time spent in research, it seems, limits the length of the list of Wells’ wrongs.

When culture is the core problem, managers like to claim their acts are the result of legitimate strategies – as Wells Fargo declared – or necessity – as Detroit’s bankrupt school district complained. Or the fight against terrorism for the New York Police Department.

Bobby Farid Hadid was granted asylum from Algeria in the mid-90s. He sold hotdogs on New York City streets. He drove a cab. He fixed copiers and got married. Grateful for his new home, he joined the NYPD after 9/11. He advanced steadily in rank. He joined the vice squad. He became a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force working with the FBI.

Acting as an interpreter in a long cold case, he traveled to Paris. He convinced the prime suspect’s girlfriend to turn on him. Kargu’s confession won praise for Hadid and the other two officers involved.

Back in New York he was invited the join the NYPD’s Citywide Debriefing Team which gathered terrorism-related intelligence. They recruited people guilty of minor crimes. Hadid was told they wanted individuals who could go to mosques, bodegas, and other places his people went. Sources should listen and bring back data.

After a few months, Hadid decided that the unit’s approach was wrong and completely stupid. He would not be a part of that. He objected. He spent more time in his office. The unit’s senior officers met to discuss their suspicions about him. He traveled alone a lot. His office was close to where confidential documents were kept. His reports revealed discrepancies. So NYPD transferred him to a Queens precinct that had a lot of Muslims.

Kargu’s trial began in October 2010. His defense fabricated a romance between Hadid and Kargu’s girlfriend. After the conviction, NYPD began an internal investigation into Hadid. They took away his gun, badge, and uniform. They stuck him in a room with other police outcasts to watch surveillance videos.

At Hadid’s trial in October 2012, the judge found him guilty of perjury in his testimony against Kargu. With the felony he couldn’t sell hotdogs or drive a cab. It took two years for Hadid to get the conviction vacated. After he did, he asked to be reinstated. But the NYPD cited performance issues. He was a problem child. His lawsuit for malicious persecution was dismissed. Hadid is appealing but his chances are dim.

Other Muslims in the NYPD report hostile responses if they, for example, wear beards for religious reasons or speak Arabic on a phone call. Failing to assimilate spawns resentment, they find.

Hadid does not present himself as a whistleblower. Still his experience is familiar to whistleblowers. Dedicated to the mission of his organization, he saw behavior that was wrong. He called it out and was punished. The organization claimed its behavior was necessary to do its job and concluded he should be fired.

Whether he can rightly be called a whistleblower is uncertain. He suffered as a result of the NYPD’s – and America’s – possibly justifiable fear of Islamic radicals. And their unjustified suspicion of all Muslims. Hadid’s supporters might defend his whistleblowing, but even more they are activists in favor of a just society.

Other minority groups – people without power – report ordeals that match Hadid’s. Police disproportionately arrest and shoot black men. Dominant whites have long demanded for assimilation from Asians, Latinos, and other immigrants to America. Male-run businesses have long preferred to pay heterosexual males more. Corporate managers reward themselves before their underlings. The wealthy justify policies that further concentrate treasure close to themselves.

Social activism grew over the past sixty years to fight abuses based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and economic position. And with it, whistleblowing expanded dramatically over the past forty.

The line between whistleblowing and activism is blurred. Joel Clement called himself a whistleblower when he exposed the Trump administration’s anti-climate-science stance to the few who had been unaware. Susan Fowler sounded like a whistleblower when she described sexism at Uber. Then she went further as an activist, presenting an amicus curiae brief against arbitration agreements that block collective employee actions against illegal employment practices[7].

Like all activists, whistleblowers do what we can and deal with the issues that touch us. We fail only when we are silent.

[1] See “The Mystery of Whistleblowing” and “Whistleblowing & Getting Even.”

[2] See “Small Potatoes”, “A New Whistleblower Ethic (Part 1)” and “Should You Become a Whistleblower? (Part 2)”

[3] See “Whistleblower Opponents: Proof (Part 1)” and subsequent parts.

[4] See “The Punishment for Whistleblowing”

[5] In addition to its unresolved HUD overbilling