WEBVTT

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How many of us have ever seen something,

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thought that we should report it,
but decided not to?

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And not that I need
to see a show of hands,

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but I'm sure this has happened
to someone in this room before.

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In fact, when this question
was asked to a group of employees,

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46 percent of them responded
by saying that they had seen something,

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and decided not to report it.

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So if you raised your hand,
or quietly raised your hand,

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don't feel bad, you're not alone.

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This message of if you see something
to say something

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is really all around us.

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Even when driving down the highway,
you see billboards like this,

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encouraging us to report crime
without revealing ourselves.

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But I still feel like a lot of us
are really uncomfortable

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coming forward in the name of the truth.

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I'm an accounting professor
and I do fraud research.

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And in my class, I encourage my students
to come forward with information

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if they see it.

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Or in other words, encouraging
my students to become whistle-blowers.

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But if I'm being completely
honest with myself,

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I am really conflicted with this message
that I'm sending to my students.

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And here's why.

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Whistle-blowers are under attack.

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Headline after headline shows us this.

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Many people choose
not to become whistle-blowers

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due to the fear of retaliation.

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From demotions to death threats,

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to job loss --

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perpetual job loss.

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Choosing to become a whistle-blower
is an uphill battle.

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Their loyalty becomes into question.

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Their motives, their trustworthiness.

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So how can I, as a professor
who really cares about her students,

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encourage them to become whistle-blowers,

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when I know how the world
truly feels about them?

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So, one day I was getting ready
for my annual whistle-blower lecture

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with my students.

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And I was working on an article
for Forbes, entitled

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"Wells Fargo and Millennial
Whistle-blowing.

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What Do We Tell Them?"

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And that I was working on this piece
and reading about the case,

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I became outraged.

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And what made me angry
was when I came to the fact and realized

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that the employees
that tried to whistle-blow

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were actually fired.

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And it really made me think

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about the message that
I was sharing with my students.

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And it made me think, what if my students
had been Wells Fargo employees?

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On the one hand, if they whistle-blew
they would have gotten fired.

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But on the other hand,

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if they didn't report
the frauds that they knew,

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the way current regulation is written,

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employees are held responsible

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if they knew something
and didn't report it.

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So criminal prosecution is a real option.

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What's a person supposed to do
with those type of odds?

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I of all people know
the valuable contributions

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that whistle-blowers make.

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In fact, most frauds
are discovered by them.

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Forty two percent of frauds
are discovered by a whistle-blower

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in comparison to other methods,

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like measurement review
and external audit.

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And when you think
about some of the more classic

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or historical fraud cases,

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it always is around a whistle-blower.

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Think Watergate -- discovered
by a whistle-blower.

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Think Enron -- discovered
by a whistle-blower.

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And who can forget about Bernard Madoff,
discovered by a whistle-blower?

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It takes a tremendous amount of courage
to come forward in the name of the truth.

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But when we think
about the term whistle-blower,

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we often think of some
very descriptive words:

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rat,

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snake,

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traitor,

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tattletale, weasel.

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And those are the nice words,
the ones I can say from the stage.

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And so when I'm not in class,
I go around the country

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and I interview white-collar felons,

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whistle-blowers and victims of fraud.

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Because really I'm trying to understand
what makes them tick,

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and to bring those experiences
back into the classroom.

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But it's my interviews with
whistle-blowers that really stick with me.

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And they stick with me,

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because they make me question
my own courage.

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When given the opportunity,
would I actually speak up?

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And so, this is a couple stories
that I want to share with you.

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This is Mary.

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Mary Willingham is the whistle-blower
from the University of North Carolina

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at Chapel Hill, academic fraud case.

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And Mary was a learning specialist
at the University,

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and she worked with students,
primarily student athletes.

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And what she noticed,
when she was working with students,

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is they were turning in term papers

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that seemed well beyond
their reading levels.

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She started to ask a couple of questions,

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and she found out
that there was a database

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where the student athletes
could retrieve papers and turn them in.

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And then she found out
that some of her colleagues

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were funneling students into fake classes,
just to keep them eligible to play.

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Now, when Mary found this out,
she was outraged.

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And so what she tried to do
was go to her direct supervisor.

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But they didn't do anything.

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And then Mary tried to go to some
internal University administrators.

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And they didn't do anything.

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So, what happens when nobody listens?

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You blog.

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So Mary decided to develop a blog.

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Her blog went viral within 24 hours,

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and she was contacted by a reporter.

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Now, when she was contacted
by this reporter,

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her identity was known.

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She was exposed.

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And when she was exposed,
she received a demotion,

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death threats, over collegiate sports.

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Mary didn't do anything wrong,
she didn't participate in the fraud,

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she really thought
that she was giving voice

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to students that were voiceless.

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But her loyalty was questioned.

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Her trustworthiness and her motives.

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Now, whistle-blowing
doesn't always have to end

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in demotions or death threats.

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Actually, in 2002, this was
the cover of "Time" magazine,

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where we were actually honoring
three brave whistle-blowers,

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for their decision to come forward
in the name of the truth.

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And when you look at the research,

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22 percent of whistle-blowers
actually report retaliation.

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So there is a huge population of people
that report and are not retaliated against

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and that gives me hope.

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So this is Kathe.

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Kathe Swanson is a retired city clerk
from the city of Dixon.

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And one day, Kathe was doing her job,
just like she always did,

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and she stumbled upon
a pretty interesting case.

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See, Kathe was at the end of the month,

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and she was doing her
treasures report for the city,

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and typically, her boss, Rita Crundwell,
gave her a list of accounts and said,

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"Kathe, call the bank
and get these specific accounts."

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And Kathe did her job.

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But this particular day,
Rita was out of town

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and Kathe was busy.

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She picks up the phone, she calls the bank
and says, "Fax me all of the accounts."

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And when she gets the fax,
she sees that there is an account

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that has some withdrawals
and deposits in it,

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that she did not know about.

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It was an account controlled only by Rita.

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So Kathe looked at the information,
she reported it to her direct supervisor,

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which was then-mayor Burke,

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and this led into a huge investigation,
a six-month investigation.

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Come to find out, Kathe's boss,
Rita Crundwell, was embezzling money.

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Rita was embezzling 53 million dollars
over a 20-year period,

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and Kathe just happened
to stumble upon it.

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Kathe is a hero.

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And actually, I had the opportunity

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of interviewing Kathe for my documentary,
"All the Queen's Horses."

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And Kathe wasn't seeking fame.

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In fact, she really didn't want
to talk to me for a really long time,

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but through strategic stalking,
she ended up doing the interview.

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(Laughter)

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But she was seeking fairness, not fame.

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And if it wasn't for Kathe,

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who's to say this fraud
would have ever been discovered?

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So, remember that Forbes article
I was talking about,

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that I was working on before my lecture?

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Well, I posted it and something
really fantastic happened.

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I started receiving emails
from whistle-blowers all over the world.

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And as I was receiving these emails
and responding back to them,

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there was a common theme
in the message that I received,

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and this is what it was:

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they all said this, "I blew the whistle,
people really hate me now.

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I got fired, but guess what?

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I would do it all over again if I could."

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And so as I kept reading this message,
all these messages,

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I wanted to think, what could I
share with my students?

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And so, I pooled it all together
and this is what I learned.

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It's important for us to cultivate hope.

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Whistle-blowers are hopeful.

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Despite popular belief,

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they're not all disgruntled employees
that have a beef with the company.

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Their hopefulness really is
what drives them to come forward.

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We also have to cultivate commitment.

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Whistle-blowers are committed.

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And it's that passion
to their organization

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that makes them want to come forward.

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Whistle-blowers are humble.

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Again, they're not seeking fame,
but they are seeking fairness.

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And we need to continue
to cultivate bravery.

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Whistle-blowers are brave.

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Often, they underestimated

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the impact whistle-blowing
had on their family,

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but what they contain to comment on
is how hard it is to withhold the truth.

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With that, I want to leave you
with one additional name:

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Peter Buxtun.

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Peter Buxtun was a 27-year-old
employee for the US Public Health Service.

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And he was hired to interview people

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that had sexually transmitted diseases.

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And through the course of his work,
he noticed a clinical study

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that was going on within the organization.

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And it was a study that was looking
at the progression of untreated syphilis.

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And so, there were
600 African American males

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that were in this study,

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they were enticed into the study
through being given

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free medical exams, burial insurance.

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And so, what happened
through the course of this study,

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is penicillin was discovered
to help treat syphilis.

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And what Peter noticed was,

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the participants in this study
were not given the penicillin

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to treat their syphilis.

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And the participants didn't know.

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So similar to Mary, Peter tried to report
and talk to his internal supervisors,

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but no one listened.

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And so Peter thought
this was completely unfair,

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and he tried to report again,

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and finally talked to a reporter --
very similar to Mary.

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And in 1972, this was the front page
of The New York Times:

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"Syphilis Victims in US Study
Went Untreated for 40 Years."

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This is known to us today
as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

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And Peter was the whistle-blower.

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What happened to the 600 men,
you may wonder, the 600 original men?

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Twenty eight men dies from syphilis.

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One hundred died
from syphilis complications,

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forty wives were infected

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and 10 children were born
with congenital syphilis.

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Who's to say what these numbers would be

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if it wasn't for the brave,
courageous act of Peter?

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We're all connected to Peter, actually.

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If you know anybody
that's in a clinical trial,

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the reason why we have
informed consent today

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is because of Peter's courageous act.

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So let me ask you a question.

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That original question,
a variation of the original question.

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How many of us have ever used the term

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snitch, rat

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tattletale,

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snake,

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weasel,

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leak?

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Anybody?

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Before you get the urge to do that again,

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I want you to think a little bit.

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It might be the Mary,
the Peter, the Kathys of the world.

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You might be the person
that could shape history,

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or they could be the person
that shapes yours.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)