Official Channels Are Things Like Grievance Brian Martin Procedures, Ombudsmen and Courts

Brian Martin Official Channels Official channels are things like grievance Brian Martin procedures, ombudsmen and courts. They are supposed to resolve problems and provide justice. However, trust in official channels Official Channels can be misplaced: in many cases they may give only an illusion of a solution. In Official Channels, Brian Martin tells what he has learned about formal procedures set up to deal with problems associated with whistleblowing, sexual harassment, plagiarism, Wikipedia and other issues. He says it is unwise to put too much reliance on official channels and that more emphasis should be put on developing skills, changing cultures and exploring alternatives. Brian Martin is emeritus professor of social sciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is the author of 20 books and hundreds of articles on dissent, nonviolent action, scientific controversies and other topics. ISBN 978-91-88061-44-7 www.irenepublishing.com 9 789188 061447 Official channels Brian Martin CONTENTS Preface 1 Published 2020 by Irene Publishing Sparsnäs, Sweden 1 Introduction 5 http://www.irenepublishing.com/ 2 Whistleblowing 13 [email protected] 3 Sexual harassment 81 4 Plagiarism 116 5 Wikipedia 134 ISBN 978–91–88061–44–7 6 Backfire 144 7 Elections 162 8 A miscellany of official channels 172 9 Conclusion 200 Epilogue: a different perspective 206 Appendix 1. Roles of official channels 211 Appendix 2. Watching the doctors? 219 Appendix 3. Showtime in Wollongong. 235 Index 246 Acknowledgements Preface As described in the preface, my ideas about official channels have developed over a very long time, and along the way many people contributed to my understanding. My ideas about official channels — such as grievance Thanks to all. procedures, ombudsmen and courts — have been develop- During an early stage of this project, I interviewed ing for a very long time. senior members of a government agency that receives In 1980, Michael Spautz, a senior lecturer at the complaints from the public. I promised interviewees not to University of Newcastle, was dismissed from his tenured identify them or their employer: their agency is not named position. At the time, I was investigating cases of suppres- in this book. I learned a lot from them, reinforcing my sion of dissent. After hearing about Spautz’s experiences, I belief that most workers in such bodies are dedicated and began corresponding with him and ended up writing articles concerned about social justice. I’ve tried to make clear that about his case. my attention to shortcomings of official channels is not Spautz had raised concerns about alleged flaws in the intended as a criticism of workers within them. research carried out by a recently appointed professor in his Several members of the high-output writing group at department. One of the striking features of his story was the University of Wollongong offered helpful comments that when he attempted to raise these concerns through the on drafts of portions of text. Thanks to Tonya Agostini, proper academic channels, they led nowhere. Instead, Paula Arvela, Anu Bissoonauth-Bedford, Zhuqin Feng, university procedures were turned against Spautz himself. Kathy Flynn, Xiaoping Gao, Jody Watts, Qinqing Xu and After he was dismissed, Spautz continued to seek Hsiu-Ying Yang. justice through official channels, mainly the courts. For For valuable comments on sections or chapters, decades, he was a persistent complainer, one who starts thanks to Carol Bacchi, Tracey Bretag, Lyn Carson, with a seemingly legitimate concern and then, when Antoon De Baets, Meryl Dorey, Don Eldridge, Angela rebuffed, refuses to let it drop. Lawson, Gavin Moodie, Jim Page, Daphne Patai, Andrew In 2018, Spautz died. After discussions with his Rigby, Paul Rogers, Kim Sawyer, Liz Stanley, Sue Wise daughters, I wrote a long blog post about his story.1 In it, I and Ron Witton. Thanks also to all those authors who checked (and okayed) what I had written about their works. Thanks most of all to Cynthia Kardell who read the 1 “A disastrous quest for justice,” Brian’s Comments, 29 August entire manuscript and who for many years has been an 2018, https://comments.bmartin.cc/2018/08/29/a-disastrous-quest- invaluable adviser on all manner of whistleblowing- for-justice/. This post contains links to many documents about the related issues. Spautz case. 2 Official Channels Preface 3 commented that it provided me with an important lesson this issue many times over the years. Steve’s comments about the shortcomings of official channels. helped me remember that official channels are not neces- Later, as I studied more cases of suppression of sarily ineffective. It was just that often they are. dissent, often the same pattern appeared: formal procedures In 2013, I started writing an introduction to this book, to address problems didn’t work, at least not the way you but before long set the text aside and worked on other might expect. After I became president of Whistleblowers projects. It took quite a few years to think through how to Australia in 1996, I heard from whistleblowers every week. present my ideas about official channels. As recounted in chapter 2, many of them repeated the same Initially, my plan was to look at the different roles story: grievance procedures and watchdogs (organisations played by official channels, for example being attackers or intended to stop wrongdoing) were unhelpful. misleading symbols. Then, after figuring out the main roles, In the early 2000s, I developed the backfire model. I would describe one or more case studies to illustrate each When powerful groups do something seen as unjust, they role and draw on academic writings about regulatory regularly use a variety of methods to reduce public outrage. capture, which addressed one particular role. One of them is to use or set up official channels, such as However, this plan never felt quite right. Part of the government-initiated inquiries, that gave an appearance of problem was that organisations seldom conform to a single providing justice, usually without much substance. In role. They are always more complex. But there was some- formulating this component of the model, I was influenced thing more. Through conversations and reading, I was by my prior experience with whistleblowers, but soon continually reminded that many people have a deep belief discovered plenty of evidence that the same methods are in official channels. When these channels don’t work, then used in many other circumstances. the feeling is that they should work, so the solution is to fix One of my collaborators on backfire dynamics, Truda them or support them or rebuild them until they do. An Gray, left a sheet of paper for me with this note: “A book academic analysis would not begin to address this feeling. about official channels?” At the time, this topic was too big Eventually I turned to a writing approach that has and too hard, but the idea stuck with me. affinities with autoethnography, which involves using one’s One of my other collaborators on backfire was Steve own life experiences to search for wider understanding. For Wright, an authority on the “technology of repression”: writing about official channels, this means telling about my tools used for surveillance, crowd control and torture. Steve experiences learning about them. I haven’t fully adopted the recognised that regulations to control the trade in torture autoethnography approach but have used it to help structure technologies often gave only an illusion of protection, but my accounts. Because I have had a longer and deeper nevertheless maintained hope that some such regulations interaction with whistleblowing, that is the longest chapter. would have a significant beneficial effect. We discussed 4 Official Channels The main purpose of the book therefore is not to 1 provide a detailed analysis of official channels, but rather to provide a plausible case that they are not necessarily the Introduction only or most effective way to deal with problems. Instead, attention needs to be paid to developing skills, changing cultures, organising collective action and investigating It was March 1993. I came to Canberra for a two-day alternative ways to achieve goals. This is a simple enough conference on intellectual suppression and whistleblowing. claim that may seem obvious on the surface. By telling The first day, which I had helped organise, was on intellec- about my own engagements with these issues, and about tual dissent. The second day was on whistleblowing. After- what I’ve learned in some of my studies, I hope to offer wards, there was a meeting of Whistleblowers Anonymous, encouragement to think more widely about official chan- a group set up just two years previously. At the meeting the nels. The system — the ways things are set up, everything group was renamed Whistleblowers Australia. from courts to elections — is so familiar that it seems inev- I knew about whistleblowing. It means speaking out in itable, the only possible way. Examining the shortcomings the public interest. A typical whistleblower is an employee of official channels and, more importantly, the shortcom- who sees a problem at work, such as corrupt practice or ings of relying so heavily on them provides a window into hazards to the public, and reports it to authorities. This a different way of seeing the world and what it might be. seems like an honourable thing to do, but it is often unwelcome to those higher up in the organisation. I had read about whistleblowing for quite a few years. But there is nothing quite like hearing whistleblowers tell their stories. At the meeting of Whistleblowers Australia, each of those attending — perhaps a dozen people — was invited to introduce themselves and tell a bit about their background.

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