OUR COMMON GROUND THIS WEEK - EPA, No Fear and Racism Oct. 8, 2011.wmv

"The Price of Dignity"
October 8, 2011


Our Guest: Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Federal Employee Whistleblower, Author, Activist
The Book: "NO FEAR: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA"


" No federal employee should be subjected to this kind of racialized workplace terrorism. Someone should have been fired and others charged under the "color of law" statues. They deliberately focused on putting her in her place."


- Janice Graham, Our Common Ground


ABOUT Our Guest:
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo


As a young, black, MIT-PhD social scientist, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo landed her dream job at the EPA, working with Al Gore, assisting post-apartheid South Africa. But when she tried to get the government to investigate allegations that a U.S. multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadium—a vital strategic mineral--she found that the EPA was the first line of defense for the corporation. When the agency stonewalled, Coleman-Adebayo blew the whistle.


How could she know that the agency with a hippie-like logo would use every racist and sexist trick in their playbook in retaliation? The EPA cost her career, endangered her family, and sacrificed more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa—but also brought about an upwelling of support from others in the federal bureaucracy who were fed up with its crushing repression.


Upon prevailing in court, Coleman-Adebayo organized a grassroots struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing discrimination and retribution from the government. The No FEAR Coalition that she organized waged a two-year-long battle with Congress over the need to protect whistleblowers—and won. The book is her harrowing story, which she will share with us on OUR COMMON GROUND.


READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK HERE:
http://www.marshacoleman-a​debayo.com/uploads/8/2/3/0​/8230599/no_fear_excerpt-1​.docx