At some point in your life, you will most likely have a moral objection to something you’ve observed in a workplace, religious organization, community, or other group you’re a member of. When this happens, your three main options are to stay silent, address your concerns using internal reporting mechanisms, or look for help outside of the group by contacting law enforcement, relevant government agencies, the press, or the public directly. Each decision will expose you or those you care about to risks. Staying silent risks allowing serious harms to continue, while the other two options risk, to varying degrees, social ostracism, expulsion, the loss of your livelihood, and, in some cases, even death. Moreover, if your moral objection is unfounded, speaking out risks exposing innocent people and organizations to harms they do not deserve.
In this dialogue, facilitated by CEHV Associate Director Dr. Aaron Yarmel, we will work on the question, “When, if ever, am I morally obligated to become a whistleblower?” What makes this dialogue particularly exciting is that we will be joined by an actual whistleblower, Madeline Krasno, who has spoken critically about her time working at the Harlow Center for Biological Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an undergraduate student. As with all of CEHV’s facilitated dialogues, the purpose of this event is not to persuade participants to change their minds or adopt a particular point of view. Instead, it is to search for mutual understanding across diverse points of view, as well as to subject our arguments, counterarguments, and beliefs to scrutiny.
This event is only open to undergraduate students, and space is limited. If you would like to attend, please send an email to yarmel.2@osu.edu by 5:00PM on Friday April 4.
