A coalition of several of the nation’s leading Whistleblower advocacy groups joined today in a letter to President Biden calling for an end to systemized retribution within our uniformed services and justice for Coast Guard CDR Kimberly Young-McLear. Young-McLear’s case is an unfortunate, but all-too-common one in the uniformed services of “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Signatories on the address included the heads of the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), Protect our Defenders, the Government Accountability Project, and this Foundation.
The aim of the address is lock-in-step inline with this Foundation’s main goal: to rid the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security of systemic and unchecked retribution and reprisal.
“Despite the incredible contributions whistleblowers make, they are often retaliated against and left to cope with a lifetime of deleterious consequences and traumas from the accumulation of psychological, financial, and emotional toll — without closure. Make no mistake that this is abusive, and it is cruelty. Through our decades of advocacy, tragically, we know that these experiences are far too common. Given all that we benefit from the integrity of courageous whistleblowers who selflessly chose to report fraud, waste, abuse, and other wrongdoings, we must always continue to advocate for their safety, healing, justice, dignity. “
– NWC’s Letter to President Biden
We were honored to be a signatory on the address to President Biden. In the NWC’s press release found here we offered the following:
“We hear much rhetoric today from our nation’s leadership about confronting future threats outside our geographic borders, but the imminent danger to the defense of our nation is here and it is now and it is being carried out by Americans on other Americans. Retribution and reprisal are real, as is the mission degradation caused by alienating and disenfranchising talented members of our Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. If we aim to be able to confront future threats to our democracy, we must confront the current ones now!”
Walk the Talk Foundation, NWC Press Release 16 January 2023
