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354

AN INTRoDUCTIoN To WHISTLEBLoWER

step in a concerted effort by Congress and the Department of Defense to
eliminate any culture of reprisal within the US military.
The MRPA was drafted and passed following a wave of public attention
drawn by the release of some alarming statistics concerning sexual assault in
the military.5 In this, the reactive genesis of the MRPA is similar to that of
the landmark Sarbanes-oxley Act of 2002 which revamped whistleblower
protection in the corporate world following the Enron scandal.6 What differs
is that the MRPA was drafted to protect a group of individuals not normally
tagged with the label of whistleblower: sexual assault victims.
on May 18, 2015, Human Rights Watch released a 113 page report that
contained the finding that a sexual assault victim who makes a report of
the assault is twelve times more likely to be the victim of retaliation (62%)
then their attacker's chances of being convicted (5%).7 The report found
that military sexual assault victims were the target of "...threats, vandalism,
harassment... poor work assignments, loss of promotion opportunities, disciplinary action including discharge, and even criminal charges"8 after reporting
their assault. Even though sexual assault victims qualified as whistleblowers
under the Department of Defense [DoD] definition, since they were reporting
the commission of a crime, the Military Whistleblower Protection Program9
failed to protect them.
Although the report focused primarily on sexual assault victims, it exposed
the flaws of the entire whistleblower protection program in the military10
and this is not the first time the program had come under fire. In 2012 the
Government Accountability office found that the Inspector General's
office, (the primary military entity for investigating alleged retaliation against
whistleblowers), conducted inadequate investigations11 subject to incredibly
long delays12 and resulting in a tiny number13 of cases where the whistleblower
actually received any relief following reprisal.
5. See Helene Cooper, Pentagon Study finds 50% Increase in Reports of Military Sexual
Assaults, The New York Times, May 1, 2014.
6. Public Law 107-204, enacted July 30, 2002.
7. Embattled, Retaliation against Sexual Assault Survivors n the U.S. Military, Human Rights
Watch, May 18, 2015 [Embattled] (available at https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/05/18/
embattled/retaliation-against-sexual-assault-survivors-us-military) at p. 3.
8. US: Military Whistleblowers At Risk, Human Rights Watch, May 18, 2015 (available at
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/18/us-military-whistleblowers-risk).
9. 10 United States Code [U.S.C.] §1034.
10. Supra note 7.
11. Embatttled at p. 100 citing General Accounting office, "Military Equal opportunity:
Problems with Services'Complaint Systems are Being Addressed by DoD," January 26, 1996,
http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/222075.pdf (accessed April 22, 2015), p. 20-21.
12. Id.
13. Id.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/05/18/embattled/retaliation-against-sexual-assault-survivors-us-military https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/05/18/embattled/retaliation-against-sexual-assault-survivors-us-military https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/18/us-military-whistleblowers-risk http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/222075.pdf

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