What I’ve learned about suppression of dissent
Forty years ago I began studying suppression of dissent. This has led me into all sorts of controversies and issues. Over the years I’ve talked with many hundreds of dissenters and whistleblowers, in Australia and elsewhere.
With this background, it has been intriguing to read about the disputes over political correctness, identity politics, heterodoxy and the like. I say “read about” because only a few individuals raise such issues directly with me. In any case, attention to these disputes has caused me to reflect on my engagement with dissent and whistleblowing. Here, my aim is to lay out some of the things I’ve learned and to see whether and how they apply to issues that seem to generate concern today.
In the late 1970s, I was working in applied mathematics at the Australian National University (ANU) and, separately, active in Friends of the Earth. Unlike today, when even energy corporations say they are green, in the 1970s environmentalism was seen as very radical. I got to know members of the ANU Human Sciences Program, who taught an environmentally oriented course. It had been set up despite opposition from traditional academics. In 1979, a key figure in the program, Jeremy Evans, came up for tenure. His teaching was lauded and his research record was not far from the norm. The relevant committee recommended against tenure, leading to a campaign by supporters of the program on his behalf. It needs to be noted that in the Australian university system, obtaining tenure is fairly routine for any academic in a tenure-track position, unless they have done something disreputable.
The assumption by those involved in the campaign — which included students, academics across the campus, and quite a few figures from outside the university — was that the decision about Jeremy’s tenure was influenced by opposition to Human Sciences. This might be interpreted as traditional scientists opposing teaching outside the conventional mould. I learned from Jeremy’s case that dissent can appear in the guise of a way of thinking, and suppression of dissent can be rationalised as concern about academic standards.
Around this same time, I learned about several other cases in which environmental scientists and teachers had encountered difficulties. Searching for more information, I obtained documentation about ten cases. The adverse actions taken varied, among them denial of tenure, failure of a PhD thesis, censorship of publications, and dismissal. The methods varied but the pattern was clear. In every case, the person targeted posed a threat to groups committed to dominant ideas.
Several of the cases involved forestry. The forest industries and government forestry departments did not welcome criticism of their methods, especially criticism from scientists. In one instance, the head of a state government forestry commission applied pressure to have two academics sanctioned for their public statements. In other instances, though, the initiative for sanctions came from other academics, ones whose beliefs aligned with industry interests. It seemed that the biggest danger to dissenting scholars was not intervention by outside groups but rather actions taken by senior academics whose agendas meshed with the outside groups.
The ten cases were those for which I could cite documents in support of my argument, enough for including the cases in an article about the issue. Along the way, I talked with quite a number of others who told me stories of suppression. Many of these stories involved what might better be called possible suppression or suspected suppression. They fitted the pattern of the well-documented cases but there was insufficient evidence to make a strong claim.
My own prior experiences fell into this category. In 1976, I had been hired as a research assistant in the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. My contract was terminated after one year. I suspected that my environmental activism played a role, but there was no smoking gun.
The iceberg of suppression
My experiences and conversations convinced me that suppression of dissent is like an iceberg. A few cases are dramatic, receiving attention and sometimes triggering campaigns of support. When scientists are dismissed immediately after speaking out, there seems to be a clear injustice. Sometimes proper procedures have been violated. Journalists see there’s a story. In short, these sorts of cases have the capacity to attract attention because they are stark and dramatic. These are the visible part of the iceberg.
In contrast are the large majority of cases, invisible underwater. Consider, for example, a dissident scientist who applies for a research grant and is unsuccessful. Lots of other applicants are also unsuccessful, so usually it’s impossible to say whether suppression was involved. Grant assessors and administrators might be biased, or they might not be, and in any case they believe they are operating fairly. The same considerations apply to applicants who are not hired, researchers whose promotion applications are unsuccessful, authors whose submissions are rejected, and scientists whose publications are not cited. In these and other areas, dissidents may be being treated unfairly but it is extremely difficult to obtain evidence about it. These sorts of cases rarely receive attention, with the result that the dramatic public cases seem to define the phenomenon of suppression. They should not.
Then there’s a deeper matter: self-censorship. People may limit what they say and think because they anticipate, consciously or unconsciously, unwelcome reactions. Self-censorship is very difficult to document, yet it may have a bigger impact on dissent than overt attacks.
Studying suppression
In 1969, Clyde Manwell was appointed to the second chair of Zoology at the University of Adelaide. In 1971, Manwell and his wife, Ann Baker, also a zoologist, wrote a letter to the local newspaper critical of pesticides. This led to a complaint to the Vice-Chancellor and a four-year struggle during which Clyde’s position was in jeopardy.
Responding to an article of mine, Clyde wrote to me, beginning a long correspondence. Some years later, I collaborated with Clyde, Ann and another dissident, Cedric Pugh, to edit a book titled Intellectual Suppression. In the introduction, we described key features of suppression.
First, a person or group, by their public statements, research, teaching or other activities, threatens the vested interests of elites in corporations, government, professions or some other area. Typically this is by threatening profits, bureaucratic power, prestige or public image, for example by providing support to alternative views or by exposing the less attractive sides of the powerful group. …
The second feature of suppression cases is an attempt by a powerful individual or group to stop or to penalise the person or activity found objectionable. This may involve denying funds or work opportunities, blocking appointments, blocking tenure, blocking promotion, blocking courses, blocking publication, preventing free speech, dismissal, harassment, blacklisting, and smearing of reputations. These are examples of what we call direct suppression. Indirect suppression occurs when people are inhibited from making public statements, doing research and the like because of the implied or overt threat of sanctions or because of a general climate of fear or pressures for conformity.
Aside from these two features, there are quite a few suggestive indicators of suppression. Often it is possible to carry out a “double standard test” by comparing the performance of the target of adverse actions with that of peers. If a targeted scientist has superior performance to peers, it is harder to explain away adverse actions. However, even when all indicators suggest suppression, it is seldom possible to make a definitive judgement. All you can say is that the actions taken are compatible with suppression.
There’s another complication in assessing cases in which suppression is a possibility: the same sorts of adverse actions are taken for a range of reasons, including racism, sexism, organisational battles and personality clashes. Sometimes a bystander to a bitter interpersonal dispute is caught in the crossfire.
Those who instigate adverse actions never say they are suppressing dissent. If they say anything at all, they always give other explanations, for example that everything was done fairly and that adverse actions were deserved. To talk of suppression is to make a value judgement.
As a result of the publicity about his case, Clyde received dozens of letters from other scientists who had come under attack for their views. Clyde’s experience illustrated how someone who is a prominent target for suppression, whose case receives a lot of publicity, can become a magnet for others.
In studying cases of environmental scholars who came under attack, it was apparent that dissent on certain topics was risky. I’ve already mentioned forestry. Another area was pesticides, as with Clyde’s case. Any scientist who publicly challenged the pesticide paradigm — the standard way of understanding what to do about pests — was potentially vulnerable to attack.
However, I didn’t need to rely on the relatively few Australian cases for this observation. By following leads, I was able to learn about many other cases. For suppression in the pesticide area, a key source was Robert van den Bosch’s book The Pesticide Conspiracy. Van den Bosch was a dissident himself and through his campaigning he learned about many other scientists who had come under attack. Like Clyde, van den Bosch was a magnet for suppression stories.
Another area that interested me was nuclear power. Being involved in the movement against uranium mining and nuclear power, I read widely in the area, including all sorts of newsletters and magazines. After becoming attuned to suppression, I recognised a pattern: there were many cases in which individuals raising concerns about nuclear power were censored, had research grants withdrawn, or lost their jobs. For example, Richard Parks was an operations engineer at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant who raised concerns internally about problems with the clean-up after the 1979 meltdown accident. After being harassed and receiving threats to his children, he went public with his criticisms and was suspended from his job the next day. After collecting material for several years, eventually I had information about suppression of nuclear critics in ten countries.
In the areas of forestry, pesticides and nuclear power, where there were many instances of suppression, the explanation is straightforward: there are powerful groups with a stake at risk. In each area, both private companies and government instrumentalities were strongly committed to the dominant approach and most experts lined up with the industry and government bodies.
Dissident experts
Imagine, for a moment, that every expert supports the position backed by industry and government. In this context, a single dissident expert poses a singular danger to the dominant view: it turns a situation of unanimity into one of debate, disagreement or contention. There is a world of difference between unanimity and a division of expert opinion, even if the division is one-sided, because others — non-experts — might start questioning the dominant view. This is part of the explanation for why dissident experts are seen as such a threat and why they are so often subject to adverse actions. If the few dissident experts can be silenced or discredited, then orthodoxy reigns supreme and members of the public have no credible reason for questioning. This helps to explain why anyone who seems credible in a field — with suitable credentials, publications or reputation — and who questions orthodoxy is seen as a special threat and is a target for suppression.
Citizen campaigners seldom are subject to the sort of treatment experienced by dissident experts. There seem to be two main reasons for this. The first is that citizens, as non-experts, do not have the same sort of credibility: their views can readily be dismissed as uninformed or even deluded. The second reason is that it is usually more difficult to take adverse actions against citizens. To understand why, it is useful to look at the social location of experts.
Most experts have suitable credentials. The process of obtaining degrees weeds out most dissidents. As cogently argued by Jeff Schmidt, obtaining professional qualifications is a process of developing “ideological discipline.” For example, tenure for academics is justified by protecting academic freedom, which is supposed to enable dissent. However, the process of obtaining tenure encourages ideological conformity, with the result that few tenured academics ever challenge dominant views except within the confines of scholarly forums.
Most experts, after obtaining their degrees, work among others like themselves, most commonly in universities, government or industry. Their reputations depend on maintaining satisfactory performance within their profession, and performance is judged by peers. This encourages conformity to dominant views. For example, for scholars, publication is the way to impress peers, and high-status publications require surviving peer scrutiny. After publication, reputation depends on being recognised, for example by citations, reviews and invitations to speak at conferences. In the context, taking a radical stand is a highly risky strategy for getting ahead. Not publishing in prestigious journals, questioning assumptions made in research and challenging leaders in the field position one as an outsider, as someone not to be trusted, as someone not to be taken seriously, perhaps even as someone akin to a lunatic. If, despite all these pressures, someone with credentials, a reputable institutional affiliation and a professional reputation decides to challenge orthodoxy, they become a target for attack.
Whistleblowing
In the US, the concept of whistleblowing came onto the public agenda in the 1970s, and there was a new genre of writing, the whistleblower story. In Australia in the early 1990s, a support group was formed, Whistleblowers Australia. Its first president was Jean Lennane, a psychiatrist who had worked for the New South Wales Department of Health. In the wake of a report recommending that people with mental illnesses be moved from institutions to community-based homes and services, she warned publicly that the community-based services needed to be ready before closing institutions, otherwise people would end up homeless or in prison — as many did. She was dismissed from her job.
Reprisals against whistleblowers include just about everything you can imagine: rumour-mongering, ostracism, petty harassment (such as assigning inconvenient shifts and losing requests), bullying, denunciations, threats, assignment to trivial duties or overwhelming ones, punitive transfers, removal of subordinates, moves to out-of-the-way offices without basic supports, demotions, referral to psychiatrists, dismissals, legal actions, and blacklisting. In some fields, notably the police and military, whistleblowers may be assaulted or framed for crimes.
Frequently, employers send whistleblowing workers for a mental health assessment with “hired gun” psychiatrists who certify them insane so they can be dismissed. A famous case involved Philip Arantz, a Australian police officer who leaked information to the media about misleading statistics for crime clear-up rates. He was involuntarily placed in a mental institution and then dismissed from the police service.
Jean Lennane, after being dismissed from her government job, set up in private practice. She was an unusual psychiatrist. After hearing the stories told to her by some of the patients who had been referred to her, she would say, “You’re not insane. You’re a whistleblower.”
Whistleblowers Australia became a national organisation, most of whose members were whistleblowers. Attending a national committee meeting in 1993, I remember hearing one story after another of people who had spoken out and suffered reprisals as a result. One of them was Vince Neary, an experienced engineer who worked for State Rail, which ran the railways in the state of New South Wales. Vince was concerned about deficiencies in railway signalling systems and about large amounts of money that were unaccounted for. He reported his concerns to his boss, to no avail. Then he went higher up. State Rail did an investigation but wouldn’t give the report to Vince. He went successively to the state ombudsman, the state auditor-general, the Independent Commission into Corruption, and his member of parliament. He also sought the investigation report using Freedom of Information legislation. State Rail resisted for two years. Along the way, Vince was reprimanded, demoted and eventually dismissed.
I heard innumerable stories like Vince’s. The standard pattern was that an employee raised concerns, suffered reprisals and turned to watchdog bodies which, however, seldom helped.
For many years, the New South Wales branch of Whistleblowers Australia held weekly “caring and sharing” meetings to which anyone could attend. Frequently there were newcomers who said, “I’m not a whistleblower” but then proceeded to tell a typical whistleblower story.
Having researched suppression of dissent, I was not enthusiastic about the terminology of whistleblowing because it focuses attention on the whistleblower rather than on managers and others who instigate adverse actions. Despite my reservations, whistleblowing terminology became dominant, and I decided not to resist.
Jean Lennane invited me to become president of Whistleblowers Australia, which I did in 1996. I already knew quite a lot about the topic but soon learned much more: whistleblowers wanted to talk to the president. I heard stories from all walks of life: police, public servants, teachers, private industry, military, churches, Indigenous organisations, academics.
It was remarkable how similar these stories were, and indeed continue to be. Speaking out about a problem is usually the trigger. Then follow reprisals and the failure of watchdog bodies to make much of a difference.
Some stories were classical in form, like Jean Lennane’s and Vince Neary’s, but many were less clear. Some who got in touch were obviously deluded, believing that devices implanted in their brains were controlling their thoughts. Others had a personal grievance, for example feeling they had been unfairly treated; they had a problem, but they weren’t whistleblowers by the usual definitions. Others, we suspected, were actually the problem themselves.
In Whistleblowers Australia, we don’t try to adjudicate whether someone is really a whistleblower. We don’t advocate for them but instead focus on self-help and mutual help: we provide information, advice and contacts. For those who are deluded or are the cause of problems, the advice we provide can do no harm.
For example, a key bit of advice is to collect lots of documentation of the problem before speaking out. A rough estimate is to collect ten times as much documentation as you think you’ll need. That’s because others — those implicated in the wrongdoing — will lie, twist information and destroy documents. Many who speak out suffer from the illusion that employers will appreciate their concerns and investigate the problem. When, instead, employers, and most co-workers, turn on the whistleblower, they are unprepared, and often lack sufficient documentation to make a strong case.
I often recommend to whistleblowers that they write a short summary of their issues, an account that explains the key issues to outsiders. This is not easy. The short summary needs to be convincing: winning support is crucial to making a difference. Those who have a personal grievance or otherwise are not acting in the public interest have a difficult time writing a convincing summary.
I’ve already told about how many whistleblowers try one official channel after another: grievance procedures, the boss’s boss, the board of management, watchdog agencies such as ombudsman’s offices, politicians and courts — all with a remarkably low chance of success. Jean Lennane used to say that only two things reliably help whistleblowers: talking to other whistleblowers, and media coverage.
Many of those who approached Whistleblowers Australia were in a bad way. Having suffered rejection and harassment at work, they started to believe what their bosses said about them, namely that they were the problem. Talking to other whistleblowers was like a revelation: finally, here were others who understood. Talking to other whistleblowers was a type of therapy, and also provided valuable tips about what to do and what not to do.
Then there was media coverage or, more generally, publicity. This brought the issues to audiences who had no stake in the matter and who could respond with concern and anger. Usually, publicity was far more powerful than anything else a whistleblower could do. However, few whistleblowers are keen to publicise their stories, preferring to seek vindication through formal channels such as courts. Publicity can be a source of embarrassment: perhaps others, on learning about the way they’ve been treated, will think less of them. Publicity can be a problem for those seeking a new job: they risk being seen by prospective employers as troublemakers.
Given that whistleblower stories are so similar, our advice is much the same. As well, our advice is in tune with that provided by whistleblower support groups in other countries, for example the premier group in the US, the Government Accountability Project.
Most whistleblowing cases involve an employee speaking out in the public interest, typically about corruption or hazards to the public, and suffering reprisals. There’s an overlap between such cases and what I called suppression of dissent, with the main difference being that in suppression cases, expressing a viewpoint or playing a role unwelcome to powerful groups can be enough to trigger adverse actions. Consider, for example, the long-running controversy over fluoridation of public water supplies as a measure to reduce tooth decay. Since the 1950s, there have been dentists, doctors and scientists who have questioned fluoridation and who have come under attack. For example, some dentists who have been vocal in their criticisms of fluoridation have been deregistered. They might be called whistleblowers in a generic sense but not in narrower definitions of whistleblowing as employees reporting matters to superiors. Furthermore, in controversies like fluoridation, what counts as serving the public interest is itself part of what is in dispute.
In studies of whistleblowing and suppression, there is a lot more attention to cases where the targeted individual receives vindication or recognition. This is natural enough, but it gives a misleading impression of the far more common cases that are lower profile, ambiguous and messy. It is important to recognise that whistleblowers are not always correct in their claims, and important that they be listened to and protected all the same.
Censorship backfire
In 2002, I wrote to Sue Curry Jansen, a professor in media and communication at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. Years before, I had read her book Censorship: The Knot that Binds Knowledge and Power, which greatly impressed me. Although I had never before been in contact with her, I proposed to Sue that we might collaborate in studying the tactics involved in censorship, in particular whether it backfires. Our first paper, “Making censorship backfire,” appeared the next year.
Censorship is an attempt to silence certain people or viewpoints. However, sometimes the attempt fails and even leads to greater attention to the people and/or their viewpoints. A famous example involved the actress Barbra Streisand who was upset that her seaside mansion appeared in one of a series of photographs of the California coast. In 2003, she threatened to sue and, as a result of publicity about the threat, the photo was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, vastly more than if she had just ignored it. Consequently, when attempts to censor online material are counterproductive, this is called the Streisand effect.
Sue and I, in studying censorship backfire, looked more closely at the Streisand effect. Powerful groups can use several methods to reduce the potential outrage from their censorship efforts. They can hide their actions (censorship of censorship), devalue the target of censorship, reinterpret events by lying, blaming or framing, use official channels to give an appearance of justice, and intimidate or reward people involved. We looked at several examples, including the famous McLibel case, in which McDonald’s sued members of an anarchist group for defamation. This spectacularly backfired, leading to massive bad publicity for McDonald’s. In the voluminous material about the McLibel case, there was plenty of evidence that McDonald’s had tried to reduce outrage from its actions by cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, official channels and intimidation and rewards. In this case, these methods were insufficient to prevent backfire. Importantly, though, many other cases of censorship did not backfire; the methods deployed by the censoring group succeeded.
The McLibel case also illustrated the use of counter-methods that can increase outrage over censorship and possibly cause it to backfire. The counter-methods are exposing the censorship, validating the target, interpreting actions as unfair, avoiding official channels and instead mobilising support, and resisting intimidation and rewards. The two targets of McDonald’s legal action, Helen Steel and Dave Morris, and their many supporters used all these methods.
Censorship is not identical to suppression of dissent, but there are strong overlaps. In looking at whistleblowing and suppression of dissent, it was apparent that the same sorts of methods were routinely involved. In prominent cases — for example, Edward Snowden’s — antagonists used many of the usual methods to reduce public outrage, while supporters used methods to increase it.
The possibility that censorship can backfire creates an intriguing opportunity: by encouraging others to try to censor you, you can attract more attention and support for yourself and your activities. Some savvy filmmakers include provocative content that triggers protests in opposition, giving their films more publicity. The implication is that it pays to be alert to the possibility that claims about being censored are self-serving.
In summary, here are some of the insights I’ve gained studying and opposing suppression of dissent.
• A typical pattern is that someone speaks out or plays a role threatening to powerful groups, and is subject to adverse actions.
• The aim of adverse actions is usually to silence, discredit or destroy the target.
• Self-censorship may be more important than overt suppression.
• The methods used against dissidents and whistleblowers depend on the resources of the attackers and the vulnerabilities of the target.
• Experts who challenge a dominant orthodoxy are prime targets, especially when they puncture otherwise unquestioned positions.
• Those who implement or participate in adverse actions always explain them as justified, not as reprisals or suppression.
• Official channels, such as grievance procedures, bosses, ombudsmen, editors, professional associations and courts, are seldom helpful to dissidents.
• The most powerful support for dissidents usually comes from publicity that reaches audiences outside the control of the suppressor.
• Censorship can backfire, but powerful censors have several means to prevent this.
• Censorship backfire can be used for self-serving purposes.
With a perspective built on these insights, it seems to me that a large proportion of media coverage of dissent and whistleblowing gives a misleading impression. Media stories are a crucial source of support for whistleblowers, communicating their concerns to wider audiences. However, the vast submerged iceberg of whistleblower stories never receives any coverage. Most whistleblowers initially raise their concerns internally and, if they hit a sensitive issue, suffer reprisals. Few ever go to the media. Reading media stories about whistleblowing can be illuminating, but few of them capture the gory detail and horrendous effect of reprisals.
Some media stories about US whistleblowers tell about large rewards provided to them, most commonly through the False Claims Act. These are doubly misleading. Large payments are rare — most whistleblowers are hard hit financially, not rewarded — and even for those receiving millions of dollars, this is seldom adequate compensation for destruction of a career and the suffering involved.
Some people may respond to stories of heroic and self-sacrificing whistleblowers by being thankful they aren’t in the firing line, whereas others, who believe the world is just, think so-called whistleblowers must have done something bad. Yet another response is to believe society is filled with courageous individuals who regularly stand up to wrongdoing, though being a bystander is far more common. It’s a nice way to feel good about yourself.
Dissidents, who challenge a dominant viewpoint, are less visible in the media. Most adverse actions are too ambiguous to provide clear evidence, so suppression of dissent remains unrecognised. Furthermore, most mainstream media coverage accepts dominant positions, because journalists and editors have little to gain by investigating positions opposed by powerful groups. More commonly, such positions are either ignored or castigated. For example, there is ample media coverage of wars and violence, but relatively little about nonviolent action. Reading the mainstream media, you would hardly know about Israelis and Palestinians who protest together against Israeli government treatment of Palestinians. Researchers who challenge counterterrorism policies, or who point out that governments are much more deadly terrorists than any non-state groups, are usually invisible, and no one knows what difficulties they have in their careers compared to those who follow the standard government line.
Then there are the stories about US university campuses where students protest against visiting right-wing provocative speakers. I think of all the suppression of dissent that goes on within campuses — the researchers discouraged from questioning standard views and the influence of government and corporate sponsorship on research agendas — and I think, how foolish those students are to be unaware that they have been positioned into being censors and thereby giving their antagonists more publicity. Students do have the power to suppress dissent, but usually it seems to be localised and sporadic. Being concerned about censorship by students is warranted, but it misses the bigger picture.
Perhaps, though, there is more to this issue, but I’m not the best person to comment. Through decades of talking with dissidents and whistleblowers, and studying their cases, I’ve glimpsed some parts of the iceberg normally concealed from public view. In comparison, my experience with cases involving political correctness and identity politics as means of suppression is more limited. For better understanding this set of issues, turn not to media coverage but to individuals who have close familiarity with a wide variety of cases from diverse social and political perspectives.
Regarding the media, there is a paradox here. For some whistleblowers, media stories are powerful aids. But media stories, overall, also give a misleading picture of the types and patterns of suppression. To fully understand suppression of dissent, you need to delve deeply. There’s nothing quite like listening to a whistleblower or dissident tell their story. Well, actually, there is: going through it yourself. I don’t recommend this. If you really want to help, learn about dissent and whistleblowing and then, from as safe a position as possible, do what you can to assist. I guarantee you’ll learn a lot.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Anneleis Humphries, Sue Curry Jansen, Cynthia Kardell, Jason MacLeod, Yasmin Rittau, Magdalene Sylvaire, Ken Westhues and Qinqing Xu for valuable comments.
