UNITED STATES
The Awareness Center
Study Defines When Disclosing a Whistle-Blower’s Identity, Like in an Email, Becomes Retaliation
Indiana University news release – Jan. 7, 2013
Under the law, whistle-blowers are supposed to be protected from direct reprisals on the job, including discrimination. But what if they and their actions becomes the subject of a widely distributed email? Is that a form of retaliation?
Two professors at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business set out to answer that question and determine when public disclosure of the whistle-blower’s identity — like in an email — is sufficient to support such a claim, in a paper that has been accepted for publication in North Carolina Law Review.
“When someone makes a complaint of discrimination that’s covered by federal anti-discrimination laws, you’re automatically cloaked in protection from retaliatory actions that could come in response,” said Jamie Prenkert, associate professor of business law at the IU Kelley School of Business Bloomington and the study’s lead author. “But what can be retaliatory is a broad-ranging continuum of actions that the courts don’t specifically define.”
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