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The Rights Of Probationary Federal Employee Whistleblowers Since The Enactment Of The Civil Service Reform Act Of 1978, Benjamin C. Indig

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment focuses on the rights, since the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), of the probationary employee who exposes fraud and mismanagement in the federal government. It reviews the rights granted by the CSRA, as well as non-CSRA rights granted under the Privacy Act, and under the first and fifth amendments of the Constitution, including the right to sue one's supervisor in a Bivens action. Non-CSRA rights are particularly important to the whistleblower who is a probationer. The Comment concludes that the CSRA does encourage probationers, to an extent, to expose fraud and wrongdoing in …