Free Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled by Jennifer Freyd, Pamela Birrell

Employers
     
    One particularly common, but often subtle, type of institutional betrayal occurs in the context of employment in a large organization. If the employee is being betrayed by his or her employers and if the employee feels the employment is particularly necessary, the ingredients for betrayal blindness are present. For example, a large company may have structures in place that systematically oppress some employees, perhaps on the basis of gender or race. When the employees confront such injustices, they are at risk of losing their jobs; thus, they have an implicit reason not to see the injustice. This is all too common. Another way that employers can betray employees is by failing to protect them when they are vulnerable, such as when they fall ill or become pregnant. This is such a serious problem that the government has enacted the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to protect employees from just such betrayal. 4. However, FMLA lasts only for a short while, and it is insufficient in cases of prolonged illness. In those situations, employees are at great risk of losing their jobs. For instance, Tom worked as a manager at a large company. He fell ill with cancer and used his FMLA benefits. After the FMLA leave had run its course, Tom still had earned sick leave to use. While he was at home recovering from chemotherapy, his employer attempted to reorganize the company so that Tom's job would no longer exist. Although Tom or any individual who faces such a betrayal by his employer may no longer have a motivation to be blind to the betrayal, all of the surrounding coworkers may remain highly motivated not to see the injustice, for fear of losing their own employment. Thus, institutional betrayal and betrayal blindness flourish.
     
    Cover-Up of Church Sexual Abuse
     
    Perhaps the best-known example of institutional betrayal is the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. This has been in the news for more than a decade and continues to surface. This child sexual abuse was clearly a betrayal of the individuals victimized by their priests. The cover-up is a betrayal of those individuals and of many others. The cover-up allowed the abuse to continue, creating a kind of shared betrayal blindness. The denials and the continued cover-up eventually caused a great deal of harm and distress.
     
    In 2011, a new set of allegations and related cover-ups came to light in Ireland. The New York Times reported in July 2011 that “The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, long after it issued guidelines meant to protect children, and the Vatican tacitly encouraged the cover-up by ignoring the guidelines, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the Irish government.” 5.
     
    In one case, described in July 2011 by the Independent , an Irish newspaper, a north Cork woman was sexually abused in the Diocese of Cloyne. 6. According to the article, she “found her trust in her local cleric replaced by an unending nightmare of shame and betrayal.” The Independent went on to explain the betrayal:
     
The woman, who does not want her identity to be revealed, has since rebuilt her life despite the trauma of having been abused before she was even 14 years old. In an almost unbelievable breach of trust, she was abused by two Cloyne clerics for a period lasting several years.
     
“I was abused by two priests over a period of time starting from the late 1970s and running into the early 1980s,” she said.
     
    The woman finally decided that she had done nothing wrong and that she would join other victims in pursuing the abusers through the justice process. Yet when she did join the effort to hold the perpetrators accountable, she found more betrayal:
     
It took years to find the courage to bring the abuse to light, only to find that the diocese was dragging its feet over numerous abuse complaints.
     
What has appalled the victims most is that