A lawsuit has been filed against the California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that high-level Caltech administrators retaliated against a senior Caltech physics professor — Dr. Sandra M. Troian.

The lawsuit alleges that Caltech administrators made Troian’s working conditions intolerable because she reported violations of federal export laws to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning the handling of sensitive information at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which is managed by Caltech.

“Sandra Troian has a right, guaranteed by California’s state laws, to speak to the FBI about violations of export laws that implicate grave national security concerns,” said Lynne Bernabei, a partner at Bernabei & Wachtel in Washington, D.C..

Troian is being represented by the Bernabei & Wacthel along with the Hadsell Stormer & Renick firm in Pasadena, California.

“It offends all notions of justice that instead of commending Troian for being a good citizen, Caltech is retaliating against her,” said attorney Dan Stormer. “Her reputation and future are being destroyed by Caltech’s retaliatory conduct.”

Since 2007, Troian has conducted national security-sensitive research at JPL, a federally-funded research and development facility that Caltech manages for NASA.

In the summer of 2012, the FBI approached  Troian and told her that it suspected espionage by one of her former subordinates.

In response to the FBI’s request for information, Troian told them that in 2010, she had reported to Caltech that she believed that same subordinate was involved in violations of federal export control laws.

She informed the FBI that Caltech had refused to investigate her reports.

Within weeks of Troian’s disclosures to the FBI, Caltech administrators began threatening her job and pressured her to reveal her conversations with the FBI.

She was told that Caltech does not “like [its] people calling the authorities.”

Troian alleges that Caltech also instituted a sham investigation, falsely accused her of research misconduct, and continues to malign her reputation.

“I have committed my heart and soul to Caltech,” Troian said. “But I will not violate the law. And, I will not allow Caltech to ruin my career for alerting them to violations of laws intended to protect our greater society.”

Caltech manages JPL for billions of dollars in funding.

That contract was up for renewal when Troian originally disclosed the illegal activity to Caltech in the summer of 2010, and Caltech was already under intense scrutiny for other mishaps at JPL.

“This case is another example of a large university failing in its management of an important national laboratory,” Bernabei said. “Just as with Los Alamos National Laboratory, where our firm represented whistleblowers whose disclosures caused the government to remove the University of California as sole manager after 60 years, the government should scrutinize Caltech’s ability to fix security breaches that impact JPL.”