Marine Corps settles dispute with whistleblower
A military scientific adviser whose pay and security clearances were suspended after he exposed the Marine Corps’ disinterest in building lifesaving, heavily-armored, troop carriers settled his employment dispute with the Corps on Sept. 25, after reaching an agreement that he and his attorney described as a victory.
Under the terms of the settlement, Franz Gayl, whose complaints about the Corps attracted wide attention on Capitol Hill and the support of Joseph Biden before he became Vice President, will be appointed to a Marine Corps commission assigned to develop new policies for handling Marine whistleblowers. Gayl also was assured that he can keep working for the Marines, although his clearances were not fully restored.
In a Sept. 25 statement issued through his lawyer, Gayl said “this resolution not only vindicates me but also my loyalty and dedication to the Marines, which never wavered.” The attorney, Tom Devine at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C., said that since “team members must exercise sound judgment and work with integrity,” the commission appointment affirms that Gayl possesses those qualities.
It is unprecedented for a whistleblower to be appointed to help a government agency develop policy for whistleblower rights, according to Devine, who has worked with government whistleblowers since 1979.
The dispute was resolved with the help of of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that protects government whistleblowers and initially intervened to block the Marine Corps’ decision to cut off Gayl’s pay in 2011. Nick Schwellenbach, a spokesperson for the office, called the two and a half year mediation the most complex undertaken by the Office under its current head, Carolyn Lerner.
In a prepared statement, Lerner, who Obama appointed to the post, commended both sides for reaching the agreement, and said “Mr. Gayl’s experiences as a whistleblower as well as being a former uniformed Marine and current civilian employee will make him an important contributor to the new team’s work.”
Related: Pentagon whistleblower Franz Gayl is reinstated
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
