Unfortunately, I have to agree and found your essay to be spot on. Federal employees find themselves in the eh same precarious position, and fighting that system for the sake of fighting discrimination (over 10 years) has lead to legal fees and endless “losses.” The federal people at EEO in appeals are anonymous and lie, committing libel against an employee, to destroy an appeal, then have their head of their “obscure” subunit (the OFO in the bowels of the EEOC) rubber stamp the libelous allegations made against the employee to bury the case deeper.
And who would believe the employee? Not the USDOJ or EEOC board who receive complaints of illegal libel by the OFO, as they have the power to ignore and not respond. Which they do. The general public, congressmen, anyone? No, they are all conditioned to think that civil government employees are lazy, liars, complainers (hence the word complainant). Despite definitive and concrete proof all in writing of the lies and libel they commit exceeding the “beyond a reasonable” doubt standard (including the original manager falsifying documents to claim poor performance), the employee will be ignored, left with proof of crimes and no where to go.
The few, the very very very few, of the millions of federal workers, actually name whistleblowers by Congress, will stay on the job anyway. And why not? If the job is good and pay is good and you can get over being nearly bankrupted by legal fees, then you just have to keep on keeping on. Discrimination and illegality can’t and should be tolerate. Take if from a professional victim. I will be heard. And so will all those you are fighting for. We must fight on for them.