When Jon Oberg was a researcher for the U.S. Department of Education, he noticed that student loan lending companies were illegally collecting millions of taxpayer dollars. He knew they were wrong and he knew he needed to do something.

The Department of Education said the agency could do nothing to stop the companies. Because it failed to hold the lending companies accountable for their actions, Oberg said he reported the case to the Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office and Congress.

Soon enough, Congress cut off the subsidies that wasted taxpayers’ money, Oberg said. However, he added, no effort was made to reclaim the illegal subsidies that were collected before Congress’ regulation.

“In my opinion, the department didn’t do enough to recover the illegal payments. Congress only stopped it prospectively,” Oberg said.

Oberg and four other whistleblowers will speak at a panel on March 26in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium as part of the “American Whistleblower Tour: Models of Courageous Citizenship.” Besides the panel, events sponsored by the Government Accountability Project’s national campaign will take place throughout the month.

A whistleblower is a person who sees some sort of wrongdoing in the workplace and decides to speak up and challenge it, said Louis Clark, president and corporate and financial accountability director of GAP.

“All students eventually are going to be in the workforce,” Louis Clark said. “I think they’ll be more informed about what the options are once they get to that workforce if they learn about whistleblowing, and they also learn about the protections whistleblowers now have.”

GAP is a nonprofit organization focused on protecting whistleblowers, advancing free speech and encouraging citizen activists to promote accountability within corporations and the government, according to GAP’s website.

Government corruption, particularly during the Nixon administration, was prevalent before the GAP began in 1977, Clark said. GAP emerged after scandals in the Nixon administration as part of an ongoing effort to instill government reform.

The Whistleblower Tour has visited colleges across the nation for three years now and will come through SU for the first time next week, said Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Gutterman said the whistleblower panel is one of the biggest events during the Whistleblower Tour. Gutterman added that besides Oberg, some of the most famous whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack will speak on the panel.

Drake was a senior NSA official who was indicted under the Espionage Act by the Department of Justice after he learned of their continuing surveillance projects. Radack became a whistleblower after she revealed the government mishandling of the interrogation of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, one of the first terrorism prosecutions after 9/11. She currently represents Edward Snowden, who came into national scrutiny after revealing details about the NSA’s global surveillance program.

“These are people who are at the top of their professions who took some significant risks to let the public know about things that the public needed to know about,” Gutterman said.

The purpose of the Whistleblower Tour is to provide students the opportunity to hear about the unique experiences of whistleblowers so students can understand how their stories relate to a variety of fields studied on campus, Louis Clark said.

Louis Clark said students will learn about what’s involved in whistleblowing, the downsides, dangers and problems that come out of whistleblowing and the thought process most whistleblowers experience.

Oberg said there were some repercussions when he reported the loan companies, but the consequences were not as extreme as some of the repercussions other whistleblowers on the panel faced.

He added that he is glad students at Syracuse University will have the opportunity to hear his and other whistleblowers’ stories because they may be confronted with the same ethical questions whistleblowers face.

“Most people, over their career, are going to run into situations where there are ethical questions,” Oberg said. “They’re going to have to decide whether to do the right thing at some personal cost or not.”

Gutterman said sharing the whistleblowers’ stories is important in order to recognize and understand how their efforts and stories have shaped the media.

“In many ways, the public wouldn’t get to know much about what’s going on without having media as an intermediary in these cases,” Gutterman said.

Gutterman said he hopes to teach students at Newhouse how to develop and understand the relationships journalists form with sources that can become whistleblowers.

But whistleblowers’ experiences extend beyond the journalism world and into almost all workplaces.

James Clark, an organizer of the Whistleblower Tour and a professor of theater management at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, said workers face pressure “to fold into the majority” and remain silent when a person sees something concerning.

“This is a kind of demonstration to show that people do this and make a difference in people’s lives,” James Clark, who is Louis Clark’s brother, said. “The people who are coming here are examples of people who have done that.”

In addition to the panel, there will be smaller discussions and events held throughout campus, and a feature of Robert Shetterly’s art exhibit, “Americans Who Tell the Truth” at SU’s 914Works gallery, James said.

He added that Shetterly will also talk to illustration, art, music and drama students to discuss the importance and sense of responsibility artists have to social issues.

Louis Clark, the president of GAP, said he has seen a positive shift in the acceptance of whistleblowers in society.

“One of the reasons the Government Accountability Project began was to change the culture, and compared to what we were facing in the 1970s,” he said. “I would say there is actually a much more positive view of whistleblowers in the culture.”

Louis Clark said this culture shift is due to the assistance of the media, adding that overall, the media have created a positive portrayal of whistleblowers.

Said Louis Clark: “I think the media is really the salvation of whistleblowers. I think it’s through the media that whistleblowers really have an opportunity often to gain momentum around their concerns.”

Published on March 18, 2014 at 1:49 am

Contact Anna: almerod@syr.edu