Academics who have made disclosures reflect on the long-term impact on their careers
Whistleblowers in universities can hit the national headlines for
shining light on issues of public interest, only for their careers to
end up in very dark places.
Some of higher education’s most
prominent whistleblowers paint a bleak picture about the impact on their
subsequent careers. They talk about being persecuted by colleagues
after coming forward. But even after leaving their jobs, some believe
they still suffer a legacy. One talks about being “effectively
blackballed” from ever working again in higher education.
For
other whistleblowers, exile is self-enforced. “It has damaged my career.
But I’m not really sure I wanted a career by the end of it…There were
so many people in prominent leadership positions who behaved so
appallingly, I just couldn’t carry on within the profession. I just felt
sick about the whole thing,” says Aubrey Blumsohn, who left his post as
a senior lecturer in metabolic bone disease at the University of
Sheffield, after raising concerns in 2005 about research on a drug made
by Procter & Gamble, a funder of research at Sheffield.
But
others point to cases where whistleblowers highlight wrongdoing, their
concerns are investigated responsibly by universities and their working
lives continue as normal.
David Lewis, professor of employment law
at Middlesex University and convener of the International
Whistleblowing Research Network, argues that the media only report cases
“where things go pear-shaped”, as the nature of successful
whistleblowing means that it remains within institutions and never
emerges in public.
Lewis says that his anecdotal evidence suggests
there is “quite a lot of successful whistleblowing that goes on in
universities”.
Nevertheless, when things do “go pear-shaped”, the
impact on people’s careers can be shattering. Those cases may offer
lessons to learn, for both universities and prospective whistleblowers...
Read the rest of this lengthy article at:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/life-after-whistleblowing/2014776.fullarticle
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