Whistleblowers are severely disadvantaged when they apply for jobs. Many whistleblowers experience retaliation twofold—first, at their place of employment after they initially blow the whistle, and, second, on the job market for any subsequent employment. This negative trail follows whistleblowers, labeling them as disloyal, suspicious, and, ultimately, not ideal employees, and, thus, unable to find work. Current federal law largely ignores this problem, and protections for job applicants with whistleblowing histories have been severely lacking in some of the most prominent whistleblowing statutes. This article is the first to examine this glaring lack of legal protection as it pertains specifically to whistleblower job applicants by undertaking a comparative analysis of the retaliation protections available in a number of federal statutes and suggesting statutory reform based on that analysis. Specifically, this article draws comparisons between civil rights statutes, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which each provide expansive protections for job applicants, and the most prominent current federal whistleblowing statutes, the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, the Dodd‐Frank Act, and the False Claims Act, which lack these protections. We conclude by recommending amendments to these federal whistleblowing statutes, arguing for specific retaliation protections and redress for whistleblowers who are denied a chance to work again because of their past revelations.

In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million bounty reward from the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public's common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which only excludes from reward eligibility those convicted of "planning and initiating" the underlying action. In contrast, the whistleblower program of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act ("Dodd-Frank") precludes rewards for any whistleblower convicted of a criminal violation that is "related to" a securities enforcement proceeding. Therefore, because of his conviction, Birkenfeld would not have been granted a bounty under Dodd-Frank had he blown the whistle on a violation of the federal securities laws rather than a tax violation. This Article will explore an area that has been void of much scholarly attention-the rationale behind providing bounties to whistleblowers with unclean hands and the differences between federal whistleblower programs in this regard. After analyzing the history of these federal programs and the public policy concerns associated with rewarding culpable whistleblowers, this Article will critique the IRS's practice of including the criminally convicted among those eligible for bounty awards

In today's technologically dependent world, concerns about cybersecurity, data breaches, and compromised personal information infiltrate the news almost daily. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently emerged as a regulator that is keenly focused on cybersecurity, specifically with respect to encouraging disclosures in this arena by regulated entities. Although the SEC has issued non-binding "guidance" to help companies navigate their reporting obligations in this sector, the agency lacks binding cybersecurity disclosure regulations as they pertain generally to public companies. Given that the SEC has already relied on such guidance in threatening enforcement actions, reporting companies are increasingly pressured for compliance in this arena. This Article addresses the importance of establishing effective internal reporting channels and other internal compliance mechanisms in meeting the SEC's expectations and highlights the role of "cybersecurity whistleblowers," specifically those reporting internally, in building the type of improved corporate culture necessary to discover and remediate cybersecurity risks. Cybersecurity whistleblowers, like all whistleblowers, commonly experience retaliation for their efforts. Despite the SEC's commitment to providing whistleblowers retaliation protections through statutes like the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts, the absence of binding cybersecurity regulations translates into a direct problem for cybersecurity whistleblowers, because their reports are likely to fall outside the scope of "protected activity" enumerated under these statutes. This Article discusses this gap in protections in light of the SEC's heightened cybersecurity focus, the feasibility of SEC adoption of binding cybersecurity disclosure regulations, and the broad contributions of whistleblowers to compliance systems generally.

For almost two decades, a sexual predator groomed and abused hundreds of young, female athletes. All the while, he held an esteemed position as the national team doctor for USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for the sport of U.S. gymnastics, and served on the faculty at Michigan State University, where he treated countless female athletes in his sports medicine clinic. This predator, Larry Nassar, is now behind bars for life. At his sentencing hearings in 2018, hundreds of his victims, many of whom were Olympians, courageously came forward detailing their accounts of sexual abuse at the hands of Nassar, who veiled his abuse and molestation as "legitimate medical treatments" for injured athletes. Many of Nassar's long list of victims were just children when he abused them (some as young as age ten), and, thus they were unable to comprehend what was happening to them as they pursued their dreams. The nation is now left baffled as to how this abuse persisted for so long and why USA Gymnastics failed to properly detect and stop it.

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