“Whistleblower”
by Amy Block Joy was such an eye-opening look at what really goes on behind the
scenes at universities. Joy discovered that there was embezzlement going on at
UC Davis and when she took direct action to try and stop it, she was met with
alienation and silent criticism. When Joy showed her supervisor the letter she
wrote and recounted that his response was “Are you sure?” my immediate thought
was that he knew of the embezzlement that was going on. I could be wrong, but I
feel like his “are you sure” was meant to intimidate Joy and remind her that if
she were to continue going through with this, her career could easily be ended
in an instant. This made me wonder how many University embezzlements have
happened where multiple people knew about it but was willingly silent whether
it was because they were scared their career would be over or because they just
didn’t care enough to expose anything. Some people might have also kept quiet
because they didn’t want to ruin the reputation of the University by bringing
to light the injustices and corruption that were going on behind the scenes.
The act of “whistleblowing” has been redefined in many people’s heads as
getting fired, and unfortunately, that scares many people to keep their mouths
shut and thus, be indirectly complicit in the illicit activities going on.
Question: What should someone do if any acts of whistleblowing would actually make them fear for their safety? Should they just keep quiet in those cases?
References:
Block Joy, A. (2010). Whistleblower. Richmond, CA: Bay Tree Publishing.
F. (2015, October 1). Social work cartoon: 'Whistleblower' [Digital
image]. Retrieved from https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2015/10/01/social-work-cartoon-whistleblower/
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