The right way to report wrongdoing
A student sees a professor fudge numbers on a research project to meet a grant’s requirements. An employee is sexually harassed by her boss. A research fellow discovers his supervisor is stealing money from the University. They’re the kind of situations no one at Harvard expects to face, but if such instances of legal or ethical wrongdoing do occur, it’s up to individuals to report what they see. To make it easier for members of the Harvard community to do just that, the University recently adopted its first comprehensive whistleblowing policy. To make that policy more accessible, the University unveiled this week a brief online training program for those who’d like to become more familiar with the guidelines. The policy, adopted at the start of the 2012 fiscal year, is intended to foster an environment in which people feel free to report possible wrongdoing without fear of retaliation and to create an...