Every scandal has its obvious villains—the sexual predator, the fraudulent CEO, the corrupt police officer—whose actions capture headlines and whose stories inevitably become the subject of a Netflix docuseries. But what about the supporting cast around these bad actors—the assistants who booked the hotel rooms, the board members who ignored red flags, the police officers who stood by or looked the other way? The people who are complicit are often invisible, usually because our legal system isn’t designed to capture them in its net.

 

Asha Rangappa, lawyer, former FBI special agent and senior lecturer at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, breaks down the four archetypes found in every complicit system and the psychological pressures that nudge people toward moral compromise. More importantly, she will explain how we can resist these pressures, both individually and collectively, to create environments where integrity thrives and corruption withers.

 

At a time where democracy itself feels fragile, Asha explains how we got off track from our deepest values and the blueprint to course-correct. ​​

 

At Yale, she teaches courses on national security law, Russian information warfare, and leadership and ethics. She the author of The Freedom Academy, a bestselling online Substack publication about disinformation and its impact on democracy, and also co-hosts the legal podcast, It’s Complicated, with Renato Mariotti.

​

Photo: ©Noel Valero

 

​