Coast Guard Whistleblower

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Kimberly Young-McLear is wrong to segregate the Coast Guard into two groups: White Men and Others. Though she deserves redress for serving a self-serving command  and she deserves respect for overcoming the obstacles of harassment and biased-investigations.

We should start in a few places at once:

This whistleblower (Lt. Cmdr. Kimberly Young-McLear), who took her complaints to a Congressional Oversight Committee, after her formal complaints to her command failed, was already in a status of both personal and positional power. As an officer and professor at the Coast Guard Academy she’d proven herself to her peers, personally and professionally. As a PhD she was/is lucky enough to have an intellect and sense of determination to guide her values and views of social justice.

Mrs. Young-McLear spoke out against a corrupt organization: Calling out high ranking Flag Officers of the Coast Guard for their faults in managing her complaints, and calling out systemic issues within the institution of the Coast Guard. Among her complaints she said the Coast Guard, on two separate occasions, assign biased and unqualified investigators. She said the Commandant ignored the problem. And she stated, “I eventually realized that senior leadership in the US Coast Guard didn’t care about me as a human being.”

And the third starting point is the framework of which Mrs. Young-McLear uses to pack a punch to her complaints.  She more-or-less describes her original complaint as one against bigoted bullies and harassers – describing the Coast Guard as anti-minority.

Moving forward the goal should be to learn from her experience and take the truths that she uncovered and prepare all of the men and women of the Coast Guard for success.

1: Let’s superimpose a young uneducated enlisted person in place of this professor, officer and PhD from the Coast Guard Academy. Would this enlisted person overcome? Would they have the tools to manage the conflict? Would their peers and their superiors listen to them? Would congress?  The most astounding result of the Young-McLear case is the fact that the Coast Guard failed to respond when one of its members said there was a problem. This, as I’ve claimed time and time again, is the status quo of the Coast Guard.  Junior enlisted members have no recourse to the law within the USCG.

2: Mrs. Young-McLear was in the right for overstepping her chain of command, if she thought her chain of command was acting in an illegal way; Bullying and Harassing are of course illegal. And bullying and harassing in the realm of bigotry are a Civil Rights violation. Those who I see complaining on social-media, who say that Young-McLear overstepped her position at the risk of disrupting the Coast Guard’s mission, fail to see many things, but they mainly fail to see why prioritizing civil rights is essential and more important than the Coast Guard’s image.

3: I think Young-Mclear calling out the corruption within the Coast Guard investigation is the most significant piece to this case. Time and time again we see the small elite circle at the top of the Coast Guard pyramid abusing its inclusivity. All internal conflicts within the Coast Guard, especially those which have media potential, are decided by these people (mostly white men, which is unfortunate for my next point).  How many cases that involve people without the personal and positional power (and intellect and internal drive) of Officer Young-McLear are completely swept under the rug or reach an outcome in bad-faith due to the goals of this small group of people?  The Coast Guard ruling class is a close-knit circle of less than 100 individuals who have all attended the same alma mater, and have been in each other’s lives for 30 plus years. This tight bunch has the legal authority, thanks to the UCMJ, to make decisions that can make lives stop, and glorify-wrongdoers.

4: For Mrs. Young-McLear’s third point, which may be her priority, I’m not so sure I can get behind. She directly states that the Coast Guard’s minority members, “ethical people who speak up, LGBTQ+, Woman, People of Color, Black people,” are the ones receiving the harassment. This is not completely true and it is a divisive statement. This statement forces everyone to take one of two sides: for WHITE MEN – or – for ETHICAL PEOPLE WHO SPEAK UP, LGBTQ+, WOMAN, PEOPLE OF COLOR, BLACK PEOPLE. I’m not sure Young-McLear wants to state her argument in these terms, though she is obviously smart enough to realize this is what will happen. If we remove her list of “minorities” from the table, the problem with harassment and corrupt leadership remains. To put it directly, even in terms I don’t like, White Men are also being harassed, bullied, and objectified for the benefit of the Coast Guard elite club and its facade-image. 

If we take anything from Young-McLear’s experience and reports from the front lines of Coast Guard investigations, let’s take her first-hand experience with the corruption.  The Coast Guard needs third party, qualified and unbiased, investigators for significant claims of wrong doings. The Congressional Oversight Committee has their hands tied with larger problems, and they can only react when there is pressure from someone who has the talents and capacity of Young-McLear.  We need to install an investigatory group at a lower level, who answers to the public, not to the Coast Guard elite.  We need to protect ALL Coast Guard members, and do everything in our power to not create categories A and B. We also need to recall historic moments (civil rights violations, “accidental deaths,” murders, bad conduct and dishonorable discharges) when injustices have been done, problems swept under the rug, and members pushed into suicidal ideation.

Lt/ Cmdr Young-McLear is now in a role for the next three years to make significant change in the Coast Guard, on the front of internal investigations. I hope she sees the problem with the inclusivity of the Coast Guard, and how that problem will persist even with racial and gender diversity. There needs to be transparency in how the CG and military in general manages internal investigations. Young-McLear is suseptable to bias too, I hope she realizes that.

Recognizing that we have not achieved full equality within our own community and within the Coast Guard, I’m very proud that I can continue advocating while in uniform for safe, honest, efficient, and accountable workplace environments in the military for all, including LGBTQIA, women, people of color, and survivors.

LCDR Kimberly Young-McLear, Ph.D.

Have any thoughts, questions or comments about the Young-McLear case?  We’d love to hear them. Share them for others to see below, or shoot us an email!  ——- UPDATE: 5/4/2020, we believe we made a few mistakes with this article and our position on the subject. See those thought and updates here, at our post titled “Beyond the Command.”