Whistleblower Protection Blog : Whistleblower Lawyer & Attorney : National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund : Whistleblower Protection, Fraud Claims : Washington DC

The American Bar Association (ABA) is holding a brown bag lunch panel with staff members from the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) on Thursday, November 3rd, from 12:00 pm-1:30 pm EST. The panel discussion will cover recent developments in Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and Federal Circuit case law that impact whistleblowers. The panel will also discuss matters within OSC’s jurisdiction, practice tips for attorneys representing clients in OSC matters, and the Special Counsel’s new policy initiatives.

The panelists for the presentation are: Mark Cohen, Deputy Special Counsel of OSC; Shirine Moazed, Chief of the OSC’s Washington Field Office; and Andrew J. Perlmutter, Attorney at Passman & Kaplan, P.C. (Moderator).

You can attend the event in person at 740 15th St. NW, John Marshall Room, 9th floor, Washington, DC 20005 or by teleconference.

The event is open to the public, but prior registration is required and space is limited. You do not need to be an ABA member to attend. Please return the registration form by Tuesday, November 1st. Any questions please contact Ryan Spagnolo at ryan.spagnolo@americanbar.org.

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Oranges and Sunshine is a new feature film scheduled for limited release this Friday, October 21, 2011. It is based on the book Empty Cradles by Margaret Humphreys (portrayed by Emily Watson), a social worker in Nottingham, England. Earlier in her career, it was her job to remove babies from loving parents. By 1986, she was leading a group therapy for adults coping with issues arising from their adoptions. Some wanted to find their parents or siblings. One discovered a brother living in Australia. Then another young woman contacted her claiming that she had been taken from her parents in England and transported to Australia where she grew up.

Connecting these two cases, Humphreys begins research that uncovers a decades-long British practice of exporting dependent children. In the 1950's and 1960's, upwards of 130,000 children were deported under the program, about 7,000 to Australia. Humphreys used her personal vacation to travel to Australia with that one woman who so treasured meeting her brother. While there, Humphreys continues her research into the child deportations.

Were this a typical whistleblower story, Humphreys would have received a hostile reaction from her superiors when she started raising concerns about a massive fraud and conspiracy by government officials. Instead, when Humphreys explains her concerns to her supervisor, the supervisor is upset that Humphreys had to use her personal vacation time for her investigation in Australia. The supervisor arranges to assign Humphreys to investigate her own concerns, full time, and starts raising the money to cover her salary and expenses for two years. This is a whistleblower fantasy. Our hero also has a supportive husband, and children who share only a few words about missing their busy mother.

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Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo (pictured with Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy) celebrated the release of her new book at Busboys and Poets last night. Her book is called, NO FEAR: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at EPA. 

The event began with a short documentary film produced and directed by Tylon Washington and Shawna Glover. The film began with interviews in South Africa of victims of vanadium mining. They explained how they worked without protective equipment. The vanadium pentoxide entered their lungs, came out of their pores, and damaged their bedsheets and bodies. Some interviews were with their widows. The American company that ran the vanadium mine took x-rays of their workers' lungs, but would not share those x-rays with the injured workers. Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo sacrificed her career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speak out against the poisoning of South Africa. NO FEAR tells the story of these workers, Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's efforts to protect them, the retaliation she suffered, her historic jury verdict against EPA, and the campaign that led to the NO-FEAR Act.

Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy introduced Dr. Coleman-Adebayo. He called her a Rosa Parks for the 21st Century.

Hosts of the event were Teaching for Change, TransAfrica Forum, National Whistleblowers Center (of which Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is a Board member), No FEAR Coalition, Alliance for Justice in the Workplace, and USDA Minority Committee.

You can order her new book from the NWC store.

For more information about her current campaign to remove one EPA retaliator, follow this link. You can also visit Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's own web page. Follow the continuation of this blog post for more photos.

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We kindly ask all of our supporters to welcome Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, NWC Board Member and EPA whistleblower, as she makes her first public appearance to launch the release of her new book No Fear: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA.

This special book talk event will be Tuesday, October 11th at 6:30 pm at Busboys & Poets (14th and V Streets, Washington, DC). Hosts of the event are Teaching for Change, TransAfrica Forum, National Whistleblowers Center, No FEAR Coalition, Alliance for Justice in the Workplace, and USDA Minority Committee. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to nofearbbp@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you all there! It truly is a remarkable story.

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