The Risk of Speaking Up at NASA

NASA LaRC Internal Memo: CD COMM # 2005-6 Safety Reporting

“I wish to address the issue of “Fear of Reprisal” raised in the Daily Press article last Sunday with regard to the stand-down in our aviation organization in 2003. While I am not going to rehash all of the events mentioned in the article, I want to let you know that we have strengthened organizational and safety valves at the Center and put new ones in place that can be used to identify safety concerns without fear of reprisal.”

Fear of reprisals, Daily Press

“Gerry Brown says there is a chill in the air at NASA Langley Research Center. People are afraid to talk, he says – afraid that if they express concerns about safety, they’ll suffer the same fate he did. Two years ago, Brown, then the center’s aviation manager, told his boss Langley’s flight operations had a host of problems he feared could cause one of the center’s planes to crash. As a result of speaking up, he says, he was stripped of his ID badge, escorted from the center by security and later reassigned to a nonsupervisory position he didn’t want.”