Silence, when circumstances call for speech is a statement. It exhibits consent when one may inwardly disagree. Integrity and upright conduct become threatened. Consider the case of lawyer Brooksley Born.
She was a partner in the prominent Washington, D.C. firm of Arnold & Porter. On August 26, 1996, President Bill Clinton appointed her Chairperson of the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission, a tiny agency governing the futures and commodity options markets. Soon a new and hidden market came to her attention. It was morphing into a juggernaut: the $27 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market. The bulk of its trading was in bundled packages of sub-prime home mortgages. In this unregulated “dark derivatives market,” she saw risks for fraud and financial debacle.
At the CFTC, no rule or regulation required Born to do anything. Her agency had no jurisdiction. She could remain silent with impunity. Or, she could speak out and sound the alarm. After a series of sleepless nights, she chose to declare her concerns.
Throughout the vast federal bureaucracy, hers proved one of the very few authoritative voices warning of the derivatives market. She met with three of the Administration’s highest officials—more than once. She presented her findings and expressed her fears. She submitted proposals for legislative reform. Her efforts were blandished, even squelched. When she published her proposals and Congress, too, turned its head, Brooksley Born resigned from the CFTC. And by and by the country plunged into financial crisis and the Great Recession. Identified as a key culprit was the dark market trading in lowly house mortgages.
In 2009 Born received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. The commendation read in part “…in appreciation of a far-sighted public servant who acted on principal to protect the public interest.”
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