thought that we should report it but
decided not to and not that I need to
see a show of hands but I’m sure this
has happened to someone in this room
before
in fact when this question was asked to
a group of employees 46% of them
responded by saying that they had seen
something and decided not to report it
so if you raised your hand or quietly
raised your hand don’t feel bad you’re
not alone this message of if you see
something to say something it’s really
all around us even when driving down the
highway you see billboards like this
encouraging us to report crime without
revealing ourselves but I still feel
like a lot of us are really
uncomfortable coming forward in the name
of the truth I’m an accounting professor
and I do fraud research and in my class
I encourage my students to come forward
with information if they see it or in
other words encouraging my students to
become whistleblowers but if I’m being
completely honest with myself I am
really conflicted with this message that
I’m sending to my students and here’s
why whistleblowers are under attack
headline after headline shows us this
many people choose not to become
whistleblowers due to the fear of
retaliation from demotions
to death threats to job loss perpetual
job loss choosing to become a
whistleblower is an uphill battle
their loyalty becomes into question
their motives their trustworthiness so
how can I as a professor who really
cares about her students encourage them
to become whistleblowers when I know how
the world truly feels about them so one
day I was getting ready for my annual
whistleblower lecture with my students
and I was working on an article for
Forbes entitled Wells Fargo and
millennial whistleblowing what do we
tell them now I was working on this
piece and reading about the case I
became outraged and what made me angry
was when I came to the fact and realized
that the employees that try to whistle
blow were actually fired
now this article is right after the 5300
employees at Wells Fargo being being
fired due to opening customer accounts
without their knowledge but the
employees who tried to whistle blow were
fired and it really made me think about
the message that I was sharing with my
students and it made me think what if my
students have been Wells Fargo employees
on the one hand if they whistle blew
they would got fired would have gotten
fired but on the other hand if they
didn’t report the fraud that they knew
the way current regulation is written
employees are held responsible if they
knew something and didn’t report it
so criminal prosecution is a real option
what’s a person opposed to do with those
type of odds as conflicted as I am in
the classroom I’m also conflicted at
home I hear myself talking to my son and
my daughter and I can hear myself
telling Vivian now Vivian don’t
tattletale on Evan and I know she
probably has valuable and probably
truthful information to share with me
but instead I shut her down I of all
people know the valuable contributions
that whistleblowers make in fact most
frauds are discovered by them 42% of
frauds are discovered by whistleblower
in comparison to other methods like
management review and external audit and
when you think about some of the more
classic or historical fraud cases it
always is around a whistleblower
Vinc Watergate discovered by
whistleblower Vinc Enron discovered by
whistleblower and who can forget about
Bernard Madoff discovered by a
whistleblower it takes a tremendous
amount of courage to come forward in the
name of the truth as Winston Churchill
stated courage is what it takes to stand
up and speak courage is also what it
takes to sit down and listen but when we
think about the term whistleblower we
often think of some very descriptive
words rat snake traitor tattletale
weasel and those are the nice words the
ones I can say from the stage but
instead of punished
people that choose to come forward in
the name of the truth we should embrace
them and the best way to embrace them is
to think about what it takes to become
one so I’m always looking for ways to
develop better whistle blowers within my
students and with my kids and so when
I’m not in class I go around the country
and I interview white collar felons
whistleblowers and victims of fraud
because really I’m trying to understand
what makes them tick and to bring those
experiences back into the classroom but
it’s my interviews with whistleblowers
that really stick with me and they stick
with me because they make me question my
own courage when given the opportunity
what I actually speak up
I asked this of my students I want to
ask it of my kids but can I actually do
it and there have been some
whistleblowers that I’ve met that have
really had an impact on my life as well
as my students experience and so this is
a couple stories that I want to share
with you this is Mary Mary Willingham is
the whistleblower from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill academic
fraud case and Mary was a learning
specialist at the University and she
worked with students primarily student
athletes and what she noticed when she
was working with students is they had
they were turning in term papers that
seemed well beyond their reading levels
she started to ask a couple questions
and she found out that there was a
database where the student athletes
could retrieve papers and turn them in
and then she found out that some of her
colleagues were funneling students into
fake classes just to keep them eligible
to play now when Mary found this out she
was outraged and so what she tried to do
was go to her direct supervisor but they
didn’t do anything and then Mary tried
to go to some internal university
administrators and they didn’t do
anything so what happens when nobody
listens you blog so mary decided to
develop a blog her blog went viral
within 4 to 24 hours and she was
contacted by a reporter now when she was
contacted by this reporter her identity
was known she was exposed and when she
was exposed
she received a demotion death threats
over collegiate sports Mary didn’t do
anything wrong
she didn’t participate in the
fraud she really thought that she was
giving voice to students that were
voiceless
but her loyalty was questioned her
trustworthiness and her motives now
whistle blowing doesn’t always have to
end in two motions or death threats
actually in 2002 this was the cover of
Time magazine where we were actually
honoring three brave whistleblowers for
their decision to come forward in the
name of the truth
and when you look at the research 22% of
whistleblowers actually report
retaliation so there is a huge
population of people that report and are
not retaliated against and that gives me
hope so this is Kathy Kathy Swanson is a
retired city clerk from the city of
Dickson and one day Kathy was doing her
job just like she always did and she
stumbled upon a pretty interesting case
see Kathy was at the end of the month
and she was doing her treasurer’s report
for the city and typically her boss
Rita Kronwall gave her a list of
accounts and said Kathy called the bank
and get these specific accounts and
Kathy did her job but this particular
day Rita was out of town and Kathy was
busy she picks up the phone she calls
the bank and says fax me all of the
accounts and when she gets the fax she
sees that there was an account to have
some withdrawals and deposits in it that
she did not know about it was an account
controlled only by Rita so Kathy looked
at the information she reported it to
her direct supervisor which was then
mayor Burke and this led into a huge
investigation a six-month investigation
come to find out Kathy’s boss Rita cron
well was embezzling money Rita was
embezzling fifty three million dollars
over a 20-year period and Kathy just
happened to stumble upon it Kathy is a
hero and actually I had the opportunity
of interviewing Kathy for my documentary
all the Queen’s horses and Kathy wasn’t
seeking fame in fact she really didn’t
want to talk to me for a really long
time but through strategic stalking she
ended up doing the interview but she was
seeking fairness not fame and if it
wasn’t for Kathy
who’s to say this fraud would have ever
been discovered so remember that Forbes
article I was talking about that I was
working on before my lecture
well I posted it and something really
fantastic happened I started receiving
emails from whistleblowers all over the
world and as I was receiving these
emails and responding back to them there
was a common theme in the message that I
received and this is what it was they
all said this I blew the whistle people
really hate me now I got fired but guess
what I would do it all over again if I
could and so as I kept reading this
message these all of these messages I
wanted to think what could I share with
my students and so I pulled it all
together and this is what I learned it’s
important for us to cultivate hope
whistleblowers are hopeful despite
popular belief they’re not all
disgruntled pool employees that have a
beef with the company their hopefulness
really is what drives them to come
forward we also have to cultivate
commitment whistleblowers are committed
and it’s that passion to that
organization that makes them want to
come forward we also need to cultivate
humility and the way that we live now
completely on social media documenting
every minute
we actually need to cultivate humility
whistleblowers are humble again they’re
not seeking fame but they are seeking
fairness and we need to continue to
cultivate bravery whistleblowers are
brave often they didn’t they
underestimated the impact whistleblowing
had on their family but what they
continued to comment on is how hard it
is to withhold the truth with that I
want to leave you with one additional
name Peter
Buxton Peter Buxton was a 27 year old
employee for the US Public Public Health
Service and he was he was hired to
interview people that had sexually
transmitted diseases and through the
course of his work he noticed a clinical
study that was going on within the
organization and it was a study that was
looking at the progression of untreated
syphilis and so there were 600 African
American males that were in this study
and they
we didn’t know what was happening to
them they were enticed into the study
through being given free medical exams
burial insurance and they just didn’t
know what was happening and so what
happened through the course of this
study is penicillin was discovered to
help treat syphilis and what Peter
noticed was the participants in this
study were not given the penicillin to
treat their syphilis and the
participants didn’t know so similar to
Mary
Peter tried to report and talked to his
internal supervisors but no one listened
and so Peter thought this was completely
unfair and he tried to report again and
finally talked to a reporter very
similar to Mary and in 1972 this was a
front page of the New York Times
syphilis victims in us study went
untreated for 40 years this is known to
us today as a Tuskegee syphilis
experiment and Peter was the
whistleblower what happened to the 600
man you may wonder the 600 original men
28 men died from syphilis 100 died from
syphilis complications 40 wives were
infected and 10 children were born with
congenital syphilis who’s to say what
these numbers would be if it wasn’t for
the brave courageous act of Peter we’re
all connected to Peter actually if you
know anybody that’s in a clinical trial
the reason why we have informed consent
today is because of Peters courageous
act so let me ask you a question that
original question a variation of the
original question how many of us have
ever used the term snitch rat tattletale
snake weasel leak anybody before you get
the urge to do that again I want you to
think a little bit it might be the Mary
the Peter the Kathy’s of the world you
might be the person that could shape
history or they could be the person that
shapes yours thank you you