Whistleblowing: the prophecy of ordinary people
by Pat McHenry Sullivan

Prophets are not always appreciated. Prophets penetrate nice or tough or comfortable facades. Like the child of the fairy tale, they dare to tell the emperor he wears no clothes. Like Martin Luther, they publish the hypocrisy of the sanctimonious and powerful. Like Rachel Carson, they shatter complacency and demand protection for the earth's little ones.

Understandably, many people are reluctant to be come prophets. The Bible offers many examples. Jonah fled when God called him to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Only after three days' reflection in the belly of the whale was he ready to speak.

Nathan must have been equally terrified to confront King David  (who had caused the death of Uriah so he could marry Uriah's wife). But Nathan appealed to David's basic goodness. Then he posed a moral question that called David to repentance.

The prophets known as whistleblowers confront fraud, incompetence, abuse and other problems where they work. Like Jonah, they are imperfect and sometimes filled with fear and doubt. Like Nathan, they are often called to confront powerful leaders who are also a mixture of good and evil; to succeed they need careful strategy and compassion.

The term "whistleblower" reflects common uses of whistles to signal foul play or danger, direct traffic, or prevent assaults. In a global society that has become so technologically, economically and ecologically interdependent, we increasingly need whistleblowers in all types of organizations:

1. Early Dalkon Shield assemblers complained that the IUD's removal string was easily broken. Quality control supervisor E. Wayne Crowder rejected them but was overruled. When he also worried that the string design might cause serious pelvic infections, his boss said, "Your conscience doesn't pay your salary."  Crowder persisted. He was fired and apparently blacklisted. Numerous pelvic infections leading to sterility and death ensued to Dalkon Shield users.
2. As a young legal secretary, Carole Peccorini discovered she had unknowingly passed bribes to county supervisors to rezone environmentally sensitive land. When her boss refused to confront the attorney who had involved her in this felony, she went to the local newspaper. While the politically powerful supervisors escaped conviction, the land was not rezoned, and the supervisors were not re-elected.
3. Pentagon cost accountant Ernest Fitzgerald was supposed to help cover up $5 billion in cost overruns to the C5A airplane. When Fitzgerald refused - and also spilled the news that the plane was a boondoggle rather than a benefit - he was fired. He sued, won and counseled other whistleblowers.

Much of the retaliation against whistleblowers is understandable. Few who commit crimes, do sloppy jobs or act foolishly like to have those shortcomings announced. Organizations with profitable products, comfortable bureaucracies or idealized self-images often see whistleblowers as threats. Many refuse to listen, discern if the charges are true and correct the situation if necessary.  Instead, they just try to remove or discredit the whistleblower as swiftly as possible.

While whistleblowers today are rarely killed (Karen Silkwood may be a notable exception), they generally are fired or encounter other actions designed to eliminate them, discredit their testimony and discourage others from speaking.

A common charge against whistleblowers is that they are disloyal.  Scientists who suggested that Edmund Teller had oversold the  feasibility of Star Wars, were accused of aiding the enemy. The same thing happened to many people who tried to blow a whistle on information that was used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

By the time my father, the late William McHenry, caught a college president embezzling, the man had already taken a widow's inheritance, student activity fees and building funds. Why then did people shun my dad as disloyal?

Obviously, many college faculty reared reprisal, wanted to avoid trouble or feared scandal concerning the president would be more harmful than the embezzlement itself. But why would people with much to lose by the president's actions also keep quiet?

Some answers emerged when Dad reread Scottish history. Under the clan system, all members owed total allegiance to the local lord. When he sent out his pipers, all able-bodied men were supposed to follow and fight. "No one was supposed to question the lord, no matter what damned fool mission he wanted you to risk your life for. If you didn't come, he'd burn your house down. After a few house burnings, anyone who didn't fight was called a coward and outcast by the rest of the clan," Dad said.

Loyalty boundaries often overlap and conflict. Obviously an employee owes loyalty to his employer. But many others have a stake in how he does his job: fellow employees, stockholders or organizational members, clients or customers, the community and the universe itself. Each of these stakeholders deserves consideration when the employee decides whether (and how) to blow a whistle.

Employees also deserve to protect themselves. Though Hollywood movies and holy cards glamorize martyrdom, martyrdom during whistleblowing is neither required, recommended nor effective. Maryland psychotherapist and whistleblower specialist Donald Soeken says the problem is that, "though were taught to tell the truth, we're not taught how to do it."

When Soeken discovered that the federal government was using "fitness for duty" psychological examinations to harass government whistleblowers, he wanted to call the newspapers immediately. Fortunately he met Louis Clark of the Government Accountability Project. Clark advised that rash action would merely get Soeken fired and the problem would continue. Instead Soeken quietly prepared evidence for a congressional committee. His testimony was instrumental in halting the use of fitness-for-duty exams in the federal government (although the continued to be used in the military and private industry to quash whistleblowers).

One reason whistleblowers are sometimes scorned is that they break the tattling taboo. Today's children learn that telling the truth can be taboo through numerous incidents like this:

Johnny hits Suzy with a rock. Classmates who want justice fear his retaliation. They also remember how cruelly the last "tattler" was taunted with "Tattletale, tattletale, hanging off a bull's tale." Teacher's "Who did this?" invokes a code of silence. Whatever punishment the enemy teacher metes out (including keeping the class in during recess to pressure someone into speaking) becomes a badge of honor.

At home the tattling taboo is reinforced if the parents command "Stop tattling!" when their true concern is "Stop fighting with each other!" or "Leave me alone so I can fix dinner!"

One extreme result of the tattling taboo is the prevalence of dysfunctional families that are obsessed with maintaining a family secret.  Specialists in physical abuse, alcohol and drug addiction have discovered that family members generally become very adept at denying individual and family pain.   By colluding with the substance abuser, they become codependents and perpetuate the problem.  A powerful tool for breaking codependency is family intervention, in which professionals help family members clearly and calmly confront the actions of the substance abuser.  Such interventions are often the prelude not only to recovery, but also to the spiritual and creative transformation of the entire family.

Organizations could benefit from similar interventions.  When honest criticism is quashed, the original problems worsen.  Deceit and denial waste time, energy, and other resources that should be spent on an organization's products, services, and mission.  The loss of integrity and self-esteem of individual workers involved in the original wrong or its cover-up spreads throughout the organization, destroying productivity.

Breaking the habit of evading problems is not easy.  Most of us don't know how to express (or receive) effective confrontations.  In organizations, as in families, "criticism" generally flows in only one direction: from top to bottom.  Individuals (particularly leaders) thus isolate themselves from important feedback that could lead to real loyalty, intimacy, and growth.

Confronting and being confronted requires trust, care and compassion.  As human mixtures of good and evil, we probably never will outgrow our need to receive honest feedback of others.  Rather, the more powerful and sophisticated we become, the bigger and more subtle the temptations we face.  The more we lead, the more we need honest feedback to break through both subtle self-deceptions and the deceptions fed to us by the kind of flunkies who prey on emperors and other leaders.

The dominant society does little to support the positive use of negative feedback.  This is especially pronounced in the legal system, which is focused on assessing blame rather than healing the underlying problems.  Wrongdoers with good lawyers can sometimes evade legal accountability.  Those who are judged bad are shut away and offered virtually no ways to heal, provide recompense, and return to society's good grace.  And the liability laws -- designed to protect the public from dangerous goods and services -- are often executed with such a lottery mentality that even honest organizations must fear to admit any organizational shortcomings.

All of this means that whistleblowers must proceed with caution.  Carole Peccorini instinctively chose smart moves. Before she blew the whistle on bribery, she photocopied all evidence (like check stubs and letters) and placed them in the safe at a friend's company.  Next she spoke to her boss and gave him an opportunity to rectify the situation. 
When nothing else happened, she reflected: who else had a stake in this injustice? Who were her allies?  What protection did she need before she blew the whistle?

Ms. Peccorini chose to work with a local newspaper editor with a reputation for solid, non-sensational reporting. Before spilling the evidence, however, she demanded that her name never be used in news reports.  Still, those involved in the bribery discovered who had blown the whistle.  Ms. Peccorini was followed.  Her therapist's office was broken into and her file was stolen.  But she was not fired, and the incident tempered her confidence, courage and self-esteem.

Other whistleblowers have not been so successful.  Some naively thought all they had to do was pinpoint the problem and their boss would handle it -- only to discover that the boss used their testimony to destroy evidence of the wrongdoing and then attack the whistleblower.  Some found that media use backfired: sensational stories inflamed the employer, while the newspaper was no help after the news grew cold. Some whistleblowers became too entrapped in emotional stress or desires for vengeance to be successful.  Others were simply overwhelmed by powerful forces who were invested in evading the truth.

The issue of retaliation is not just a matter of injustice to a few whistleblowers.  When workers like E. Wayne Crowder are silenced, people and the planet suffer.  When workers like Carole Peccorini succeed, we all win safer products and services, a better physical environment, and a strengthened trust in each other.
Nor is whistleblowing limited to the grand, dramatic acts of the few.  All of us are called at times to confront the wrongs of others, whether those wrongs seem intentional or accidental. 

My grandfather would never consciously harm another. But he was too proud and stubborn to admit that at 85 his eyes were no longer adequate for safe driving.  My aunts saw the pain under that pride and they grieved with him the loss of youthful facilities.  Then they took away his car keys.

By definition, whistleblowing always involves ordinary humans who have close  professional, economic and/or social ties.  As such it will always require hard, painful choices.  But it also offers the opportunity for deeper unfolding of human gifts.  One of humanity's best-kept secrets is not how awful we are, but how much we really need each other and how much we long to serve each other and the planet through our gifts.
Nathan knew this.  Nathan provided David a graceful way to confront his wrongs.  After repenting, David sired a son, Solomon the wise.

The prophets we call whistleblowers don't have to be extraordinarily gifted or visionary.  Maybe all they can do is announce the wrongs they see. But if they speak with clarity and compassion, and if we support them in that task, all of us can help birth new wisdom.

copyright 1988, by Pat McHenry Sullivan, as previously published in Creation Magazine and Spirit at Work newsletter, all rights reserved