The Trials of a Whistle-blower

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Storytelling, New, Society & Culture, Yorker, Wnyc, Books, Remnick, Politics, Arts, David

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center—a Georgia facility run by LaSalle Corrections, a private company operating an immigration-detention contract with ICE—Dawn Wooten became aware of some frightening violations, including numerous hysterectomies and other medical procedures performed without patient consent. When she asked questions, she was demoted and eventually pushed out. Wooten supplied critical information for two complaints about I.C.D.C., which were submitted to the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security. The complaints were first reported in The Intercept in September, 2020, and then covered widely in the national press. Last May, in a victory for Wooten, the detained women who spoke up about their mistreatment, and the advocacy groups that had fought on their behalf, ICE ended its I.C.D.C. contract with LaSalle. Wooten’s own troubles, however, had just begun. Receiving death threats and kidnapping threats, she and her five children stayed under security in a series of hotels. Her whistle-blower-retaliation complaint with the federal government is still awaiting a finding, as the Office of the Inspector General has requested two extensions on its legally required deadlines. Meanwhile, Wooten found that hardly anyone would hire a nurse who had made front-page headlines: despite her twelve years of experience, she was rejected from more than a hundred jobs during a national nursing shortage. She couldn’t get hired at McDonald’s. Wooten, and the detained women who shared their stories at great risk, are still awaiting justice. For Sarah Stillman, who covers immigration for The New Yorker, Wooten’s case draws attention to the fact that low-wage whistle-blowers, in particular, can face almost insurmountable obstacles to coming forward to expose wrongdoing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.6	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When we hear from a whistleblower, it often sets off
0:16.1	frenetic news cycles. Think of the recent Facebook revelations, first in the Wall Street Journal,
0:22.0	and then absolutely everywhere. Whistleblowers are insiders, and without them, many abuses
0:28.1	would never come to light. Often enough, they're celebrated for a while for their bravery,
0:33.3	and then the story recedes. But for those people who are brave enough to blow the whistle,
0:38.1	the repercussions don't end with the news cycle. Sarah Stillman covers immigration for the New Yorker,
0:45.2	and she has this story. If you were paying attention to the news back in September of 2020,
0:53.1	you probably heard about the really chilling
0:55.8	allegations of medical mistreatment at the Irwin County Detention Center, which is a for-profit
1:01.4	detention facility in Georgia.
1:03.0	Breaking news today, it's about an alarming new whistleblower complaint that alleges, quote,
1:08.9	high numbers of female detainees detained immigrants
1:12.9	at an ICE detention center in Georgia received questionable hysterectomies while in ICE custody.
1:19.4	Women were describing having experienced forced hysterectomies, heinous medical neglect in the midst
1:24.1	of the pandemic.
1:24.8	A failing to protect both prisoners and employees from the
1:29.0	virus. And one of the central faces you may have seen is the face of a woman named Don Wooden,
1:34.4	who was a nurse at the facility where all of this was happening. And she, along with a bunch of the
1:39.3	women who had these experiences in detention, she spoke up about the really chilling things that she was seeing and experiencing.
1:47.6	Recently, I got a call after all this time had passed from Don Wooden's attorney, and she said,
1:54.0	you know, so many people followed that story in the news. It sparked congressional investigations.
	...

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