Whistleblowers and Victims
Whistleblowers occupy a curious area of the moral landscape. They are renegades who cooperate with authorities. They are ethical purists who betray their
loyalties to employer and co-workers.
They are heroes (villains to some) and, usually, victims. They are Davids who are smacked down by
Goliaths.
In The Rise of Victimhood Culture by Bradley
Campbell and Jason Manning, moral culture is defined by the grievances we have,
the ways we handle them, and the languages and practices that go along with all
that. In an honor culture, they write, reputation
counts a lot. We act quickly, and
physically if necessary, if our honor is insulted. Legal authority, if it exists, is not trusted
or relevant. Think of the Hamilton-Burr
duel: Burr felt insulted, and Hamilton felt forced to accept Burr’s
challenge. Then Vice President Burr shot
and killed the former Secretary of the Treasury.
As societies develop legal systems, dignity culture emerges. There, our virtue is internal and beyond real
injury. Sticks and stones may break my
bones, but words will never hurt me.
People admire our ability to shrug off insults. If a matter is truly serious, we take it to a
third party. American society in 1804
was in transition to a dignity culture, and Aaron Burr was called a murderer.
In the 1970s – around the time whistleblowing began – a new
phenomenon surfaced. Microaggressions
were minor insults that the dignity culture would ignore. But for those in what Campbell and Manning
call the victimhood culture, if they recur often, they add up to a serious
injury. The authors offer the example of
clutching one’s purse when an African-American walks into an elevator. These insults can affect people at all levels
of society. President Obama, addressing
the death of Trayvon Martin, spoke of the sting he and other blacks know in
such situations.
In this environment, even words can hurt. Like the tone deaf “All lives matter.” Victimhood culture combines the rash
sensitivity to insult of honor culture with an extravagant reliance on dignity
culture’s use of third parties to resolve differences. Negotiation is impossible.
The status of victims of offense – say, racial or ethnic
minorities, women or LGBT individuals, the differently abled, or the poor – is
raised on the way to punishing offenders.
Privilege is deplored. Faced with
two competing story lines, we believe those whom we find more virtuous – the
victims. If oppressors claim to be
victims, we insist we are the ones truly victimized. To suggest a victim may be partly at fault is
tantamount to victim blaming.
As my whistleblowing failure drifts years into the past. I
rethink the experience: I accomplished nothing, beyond getting fired. Maybe I had the narrative all wrong. Maybe I wasn’t the ethical purist, the heroic
renegade. Perhaps instead, I played a
different role: that of the victim.
Like those who complain about microaggressions, I called out
violations that seemed trivial to many.
The incident that launched me on being a whistleblower – a $130,000
overbilling by HomeFirst Services
– was dismissed by the company, Santa Clara County, and the State of
California. My first true whistleblowing
action – about
a licensing violation – led to a State monitoring visit, but that was about
it. I offered many other
complaints and thought them all valid, but they received no attention.
That happens to others, too.
Dozens of whistleblowers called out unsafe
conditions at the Manchester (NH) VA center,
but an investigation decided their claims
were unfounded. James
DeNofrio, an administrative officer at a VA center in Pennsylvania, claimed
his boss had dementia, but he performed normally in tests. Michael
Gurrieri, an internal investigator with the San Diego (CA) school district,
reported mishandling of sexual abuse claims and was fired. A victim like him, I tend to believe
Gurrieri, but a jury and various authorities ruled his claims were unsupported.
If breaking the law is seen as minor and unworthy of response,
what then of the retaliatory insults that lead to a forced resignation or
termination? For us, eyes rolled in
response to our suggestions, exclusion from meetings and important work,
relegation to underequipped offices, and pictures of rats taped to our lockers
add to a workplace that unfairly rejects us.
We are penalized when denied raises and promotions. Instead, maybe these insults only prove our
bosses and colleagues are jerks and we should get out of there.
Like players in the victimhood culture, whistleblowers rely
on third parties to resolve our conflicts.
Sometimes we use them extensively.
To support of my allegations against HomeFirst, I made more than 200 complaints
and follow-ups to 30 different federal, state and local agencies. That sort of excess can be necessary because
each violation and retaliation complaint is handled separately and these
agencies don’t act quickly. Still, it
might demonstrate a freakish obsession.
As in victimhood culture, whistleblowers earn high status,
justified or not. They are said to provide
great
value to society. They are courageous. They are heroes.
Victimhood culture can generate political success when masses
of followers are moved to demand justice for the downtrodden – blacks,
females, LGBT, and more. They can bring
down those who mistreat minorities. Although
based on arguably minor violations, they are often linked to atrocious acts:
blacks killed by police officers and women raped by powerful men.
Whistleblowers, on the other hand, seldom lead anyone. Our charges are technical and involve
confidential information. We appeal to
reasoned analysis, not to emotions that inspire others to action. On the rare occasions when we spark political
change – Edward Snowden’s disclosures, for example – interest soon passes.
The benefits of victimhood culture can be unclear to those
who question whether microaggressions truly accumulate to serious harm. But Campbell and Manning claim the social damage
is real. On college campuses, academic
freedom and freedom of speech are threatened, they say. Greg Kukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue similarly
in The Coddling of the American Mind.
The revelation of hidden misdeeds surely benefits
society. But it is not obvious that
whistleblowing by employees produces benefits that outweigh its costs to individuals who make disclosures and the billions of dollars spent annually to
maintain the whistleblowing system. The process
has failed.
After fifty years of whistleblowing, the time may have come for
a new approach. One in which employees
do not invent loyalty to an organization and stay to fix its failings. If they remain in an organization after seeing
misbehavior, they should recognize their selfish reasons for staying. Policies and laws that leave them open to retaliation should surprise no one.
A better strategy might be:
gather the information you need, leave, disclose the misdeeds if you like, and
get on with life in a healthier space.
