The Whistleblower Identity
I think this is the way it worked with me: I found
a problem while doing my job, and my boss got upset. That irked me. Then I raised another
issue which had been around for a while and I knew would set her off. I took a moral stance and got blown
back. I decided I was, and had to be, a
whistleblower. It ended badly for me.
For a long time after I made my first disclosure about HomeFirst Services at the end of 2013,
I thought of myself as a whistleblower.
It was part of my identity. It
explained why I had been fired.
Erik
Erikson introduced the concept of identity in
1950, and public interest grew
quickly. Erikson, who trained under
Anna Freud, applied it to a stage of youthful psychological development. He described a process of integrating roles
and skills with an eye toward how one will perceived as an adult – its social
dimension. Identity, he wrote, provides
a sense of continuity and sameness – its internal dimension.
The concept evolved.
Recently, Kwame
Anthony Appiah offered a new formulation.
Identity comes with labels, he writes, and ideas about why and to whom
they should apply. It shapes our
thoughts about how we should behave and how others should treat us. Whether we have a right to claim an identity
and to receive particular treatment may be contested by others.
The whistleblower identity is attractive to some. It helps justify our actions after we defy expectations
of our employee identity. It seems to promise
protection, even if the promise is eventually broken. But its contestable nature is key to the
organization’s defense after it retaliates against us[1]. Despite my eight allegations
of HomeFirst violations, my retaliation
complaint, and my 150+
page rebuttal to HomeFirst’s defense, the State
of California still determined I was no whistleblower. We had different understandings.
Some balk at the idea of being a whistleblower. They say they were just doing their
jobs. That was Adam
Wapniak, an audit officer in New York City’s Administration for Children’s
Services, when he called out poor payment practices and other problems. That was
Cynthia Cooper
before she leveraged her WorldCom whistleblowing into a speaking career.
Sometimes the identity is assigned for the simplest
things. Terry
Chapman and Guillermo Toledo, who worked with the Kern (CA) High School
District PE program, spoke up at a Board meeting. They were promptly labelled whistleblowers by
a local news station.
Multiple identities can coexist in a single individual. They do in Appiah who can be read as
Ghanaian, British, or American. They can
intersect: a black man’s expectations differ from those of a
Christian-black-trans, for example. Because
of this fluidity, democratic societies have fractured into ever narrower
identities, according to Francis
Fukuyama. Each identity demands recognition and a proper
measure of respect, he
says.
Terry
Albury’s double identity as an FBI agent with Ethiopian origins created a
problem when his office started going after Somalis. He added whistleblower to his identities and
was canned. Jennifer
Denk was an employee of PharMerica, but the oath she swore when she
graduated from pharmacy school led her to file an FCA suit against her
employer. The suit succeeded although
PharMerica denied doing anything wrong. Siobhan
O’Connor was also torn: she cares for her boss Bishop Malone, who allowed
sexual abusive priests to stay in ministry, but she is a faithful Catholic who felt
God
called her to leak documents about Malone.
Identities can emerge or recede over time. I did not always see myself as a
whistleblower. I didn’t
in 1992 at MAI Systems or at Catholic Charities in 2005 when I witnessed
violations but stayed silent. I became
one only in 2013.
I came to see myself as a “whistleblower” at HomeFirst, but
before that I was a “highly
valued member of the team.” I
doubted, though, how well I was valued.
Some of my professional opinions didn’t seem respected at all. I didn’t
like the way I was treated. That valued employee
identity wasn’t working for me.
Groups often don’t get the recognition they want. Then they organize; they take action. One result, Amy
Chau writes, has been identity
politics, which became a hot topic in the context of Donald Trump’s
election. In the lead up to 2016,
identity politics was a problem the Democratic Party would have to overcome
or recover
from. It’s safe to say that whether
Democrats focus on it or not, identity politics will be vexing for years.
Whistleblowers, though, don’t organize and are weaker as a
result. The National Whistleblower Center aims
to help whistleblowers, but, resources being limited, it helps only bigger-time
guys than me. Same thing for Government Accountability Project. But combining our efforts as whistleblowers –
or even consoling each other – is difficult because we are constrained by
confidentiality requirements and the threat of lawsuits from our (former)
employers.
The whistleblower identity can be dysfunctional. It can get us into trouble without solving
anything. Still we do it.
In Dangerous Minds Ronald Beiner describes
the threat that ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger pose to liberal society. They helped fuel fascism on the right and
left, white supremacists, and other poisons.
Nietzsche’s ΓΌbermench and those privileged with access to Heidegger’s ineffable
Being may face struggle, danger and death, but that’s the source of their
emotional appeal, Beiner (citing George
Orwell) says.
We are challenged to be sure that our confidence in our
special causes is not another dangerous idea. It would be nice to know that we really are
attracted to do good rather than engage in struggle, danger, and the risk of (career)
death.
At the end of our project, when we view it all from a
distance, our efforts can appear
foolish. The idea that we have a moral
obligation to blow the whistle can seem silly. Maybe it’s better for us, our families, and society
if we just walk away from the jerks. That
sounds a little like Howard
Roark, but maybe.
[1]
For example: Terry
Albury, Eric
Borcik, Martin
Desmond, James
Friedlander, Paul
Somers, and Reality
Winner. And famously Edward
Snowden and Chelsea
Manning. The State
of California determined that I, too, was not a whistleblower in good
faith.
