Penn State: Putting Loyalty To The Organization Before Stopping The Molestation Of Boys
That's what the Freeh report, in the wake of Sandusky's molestation of numerous boys, shows about Penn State officials -- that they failed to protect the children and facilitated the abuse. Jonathan Turley has posted the report as a PDF you can read here. An excerpt:
The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims. As the Grand Jury similarly noted in its presentment,1 there was no "attempt to investigate, to identify Victim 2, or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct except as related to preventing its re‐occurrence on University property."Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University - President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President‐Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno - failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky's activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well‐being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001. Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity, of what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001.
These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University's facilities and affiliation with the University's prominent football program. Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky's behaviors and no one warned the public about him.
By not promptly and fully advising the Board of Trustees about the 1998 and 2001 child sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky and the subsequent Grand Jury investigation of him, Spanier failed in his duties as President. The Board also failed in its duties to oversee the President and senior University officials in 1998 and 2001 by not inquiring about important University matters and by not creating an environment where senior University officials felt accountable.
Once the Board was made aware of the investigations of Sandusky and the fact that senior University officials had testified before the Grand Jury in the investigations, it should have recognized the potential risk to the University community and to the University's reputation. Instead, the Board, as a governing body, failed to inquire reasonably and to demand detailed information from Spanier. The Board's overconfidence in Spanier's abilities to deal with the crisis, and its complacent attitude left them unprepared to respond to the November 2011 criminal charges filed against two senior Penn State leaders and a former prominent coach. Finally, the Board's subsequent removal of Paterno as head football coach was poorly handled, as were the Board's communications with the public.
Even if you don't read the entire document, go through and read the timeline, starting on page 19. It's utterly chilling. Everyone from a janitor to university administrators puts themselves and the university before the boys who were and who were to be molested.
Not that I would defend Sandusky, and there is no justification or mitigating factor in his conduct, but there is one thing that concerns me about stories about child molesters: no one ever seems to ask, what that done to him as a child?
Was Sandusky molested as a child?
Patrick at July 12, 2012 9:47 AM
Watched the press conference. Horrifying.
What scares me as a parent is that this went on for years at Penn State, just as it went on for decades in the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously, these aren't the only two large institutions on the planet that have/are engaged in the cover-up of child abuse. Where will the next scandal break, and how many more children will have thier lives destroyed not just by physical abuse, but by authority figures doing everything they can to deny, cover up, and even facilitate abuse?
UW Girl at July 12, 2012 9:53 AM
Nothing about this story has surprised me. People worship at the altar of sports in this country.
I grew up in a Football-Is-God school in a Football-Is-God town. I hated that aspect of it. And railed against it every chance I got. Naturally, I was looked at as a freak (as I am now over the TSA stuff). Why couldn't I get with the program? Why couldn't I "support the team"?
It's okay. I knew I was right then and I know I'm right now. The level of complicity extends to parents, teachers, coaches, and fans. They don't care what's going on. They don't want to know what's going on. They want to live in denial. And so they do.
And so abuse like this continues all over the country. This is the tip of the iceberg.
Bernard Lefkowitz wrote an excellent book about all this stuff years ago called Our Guys. Of course, nothing has changed. There are other good books out there about this subject. I wrote an op-ed on it for the Baltimore Sun ten years ago; had to fight the old boys' network tooth and nail to get it published, and even then they watered down. Ditto for getting an interview on NPR about it when I worked there.
People don't want to hear it. Whatever you do, don't criticize "our guys"!
Lisa Simeone at July 12, 2012 10:03 AM
People worship at the altar of sports in this country.
Yes.
But if Paterno had outed Sandusky, he could have had him drawn, quartered and hung before a home football game to the loud cheers of the crowd as justice served up piping hot.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 12, 2012 10:32 AM
By the way, here's the link:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-02-23/news/0302220240_1_goodrich-crime-in-america-recruiting-parties
Lisa Simeone at July 12, 2012 11:12 AM
@UW Girl: "Where will the next scandal break, and how many more children will have thier lives destroyed ..."
Wherever people believe that speaking out isn't worth the price they'll have to pay for it. The deeper and more serious the scandal is, the higher the price will be for not conforming with the cover-up. That should be a warning to all of us.
Old RPM Daddy at July 12, 2012 12:19 PM
Jesus Cocksucking Christ on a Stick! From the family's statement—
This is PSYCHOPATHOLOGY. Joe Freaking Paterno could have called in air strikes with a phone call. I have zero doubt that any person reading these words, had they been in Paterno's position, would have risen from the chair to chase down Sandusky with tin snips to the gut and bricks to the head.I'm not particularly spooked about child abuse relative to other human evil, y'know? I remember very clearly the simpering ease with which Janet Reno invoked its terror after her atrocity in Waco.
But Good-God-Damn: I can't understand what's going on in that Penn State community, or within that reprehensible family, that would make them argue that passing a note to the upstairs office would be a defensible response to the behavior which was eye-witnessed from Sandusky.
I want to cuss some more, but I trust that you get the picture. Even better: I trust that you agree with me.
Dig Paterno up, fire him, send him to prison for a few months, bury him again (no service).
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 12:45 PM
You know who this reminds me of?
The Jackson family.
Every time a scandal happened, no matter how filthy it was or how deep into their adult lives it came, each of them would talk as if they were composing an excuse for the sadistic-but-not-very-bright father, as if avoiding a child's whoopin' were the only consideration.
The Paternos are grotesque.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 1:02 PM
Crid, psychopathology is indeed the correct term.
Lisa Simeone at July 12, 2012 1:03 PM
Always remember, Lisa: "Everyone shares the responsibility."
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 1:17 PM
Penn State HAD no greater "leader" than Joe Paterno.
The only explanation is that the family thinks he's still alive and is going to be angry if they say the wrong thing.
I wish there were a force that could wake them up. Super-successful people sometimes warp the souls of the dearest and closest people in their lives. We see this in every field.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 1:22 PM
This reminds me of the Catholic church. Specifically when the stories were breaking left and right of youths being molested by the clergy and the Vatican had to convene an investigation to decide if this was wrong or not. Seriously, that's what their initial action was.
Then moving priests from parish to parish. Etc.
Many dioceses to this day have funds earmarked as settlement money 'just in case.'
This to me is far more horrifying than one man's actions, as reprehensible as they were.
DrCos at July 12, 2012 2:56 PM
Well, at least maybe this will throw the rot of the Church into perspective...sports is rife with gay pedofile jock-sniffers. Because they just love working with kids! and what about schools in general? you know, those teachers who also love to work with kids, and will stay all hours to be with them?
People need to get over their sentimental illusions about adults who would spend so much time around kids. Even Father O'Malley seems a little suspect now.
jeanne at July 12, 2012 3:29 PM
> that's what their initial action was. Then moving
> priests from parish to parish. Etc.
I dunno, the texture of the Penn State scandal is different somehow. It's hard to say why.
The Catholics, like all holy people, are always distracted... They've always got their mind on otherworldly things. And the Vatican itself sincerely does consider world events on a global scale, with chess moves playing out over centuries. A few hundred thousand terrorized children isn't a big deal to them.
But this Penn State crowd is just a bunch of people watching football.
Plus, y'know, the fuckin' season's over. Even football players themselves do other things during the football season... They go to school, they buy gas for their cars, they read books, etc.
To blow this scandal off as these people have, as if they don't have time and it's not their responsibility anyway, is as weird as it is offensive. It's the move of someone who's trying drop their own psychographic baggage into the discussion without a clue of how to do so, and without concern for our disinterest. (Golly, this happens in anonymous blog comments, too!)
This isn't about the evils inherent in technocratic machinery. This happened because a set of particularly bad souls took command of an institution.
Really? Really?
No. No. He didn't even have to be. There were eyewitnesses, and it didn't matter.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 3:32 PM
Crid must not be getting enough attention lately. "Gosh, people are actually ignoring me! I better say the most offensive thing I can think of to piss off Christians so people will start responding to me again. Cause, you know … even negative attention is better than no attention.
Patrick at July 12, 2012 3:33 PM
A tidbit from Graham Spanier's wikipedia page:
"As a family sociologist, demographer, and marriage & family therapist, he was the founding editor of the Journal of Family Issues"
Martin at July 12, 2012 5:04 PM
Spanier's thesis.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 12, 2012 6:13 PM
Was Sandusky molested as a child?
What makes cases like this sad all around is that the answer to that question is almost certainly yes.
A friend of mine who works as a child advocate explained that all of the people she sees who abuse their kids were abused themselves, and especially in the case of sexual abuse, they have no idea they're doing anything wrong. They're completely broken. They agree that sexually abusing children is terrible, but they don't see what they do as abuse.
MonicaP at July 12, 2012 6:31 PM
"My tribe, right or wrong." Seems to be an awful lot of that around these days.
Cousin Dave at July 12, 2012 8:24 PM
Crid: "This isn't about the evils inherent in technocratic machinery. This happened because a set of particularly bad souls took command of an institution.
'Sandusky was a great deceiver.'
Really? Really?
No. No. He didn't even have to be. There were eyewitnesses, and it didn't matter."
Right on, Crid.
That applies to any institution, especially where some people have power, authority, influence over others. Character matters, even more than intelligence, talent, skill, experience, ability.
Ken R at July 12, 2012 10:45 PM
> They agree that sexually abusing children is
> terrible, but they don't see what they do as
> abuse.
Loathe as I am to be concerned with their perspective, what you're describing is very much the feeling I get from the Paterno family in this case (and the Jackson family in every case).
It's an extreme of solipsism; By telling us that other people and their feelings don't exist, they're hoping to signal that they too were completely overwhelmed (because saying so in as many words is forbidden by their clan).
And we're all, like, "None of that matters, you doorknob: You're an adult now. "
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 6:38 AM
Again— This was bugging me on the drive into work this morning.
It's just football.
That's ten games a season, right?, three hours per game.
That leaves approximately three hundred sixty three days per year to pursue one's citizenship in other contexts... For example, defending children from rape.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 6:44 AM
And we're all, like, "None of that matters, you doorknob: You're an adult now. "
Yeah. We can't be giving people free passes because they themselves are damaged goods. Most people who are sexually abused do not go on to become pedophiles.
However, we also have this unreasonable expectation that once people are adults, whatever's broken in their brains should correct itself -- that maturity itself rights the ship.
We have no idea what to do with these people. We don't know how to rehabilitate pedophiles, so all we can do is punish them in a way that they can't make more.
MonicaP at July 13, 2012 7:00 AM
Who gives a shit if Sandusky was molested as a child. Plenty of people are and DON'T continue the cycle. He chose his actions and nothing else past that fact matters.
We need to bring back public hangin's in the square, just for this guy. And I'd string up every complicit person at penn State, too.
The fact that our charter school never will have a football team was no small part of our choice to pick it. Worshipping people because they can throw or catch a ball of whatever size is pathetic.
momof4 at July 13, 2012 8:10 AM
Um, I think—
> We can't be giving people free passes because
> they themselves are damaged goods.
&
> once people are adults, whatever's broken in
> their brains should correct itself -- that maturity
> itself rights the ship.
— are closer to being the same thing than you'd like to believe. Maturity is a ship that's been righted as necessary.
There is no belief fonder to the human heart than that one's interior traffic is in good order while what's gone wrong is from out there, and that everything will go OK if the rest of the Universe pays attention to its responsibilities and is alerted to its shortcomings. (People like to bitch.)
But it's not true. This is why I joked with Lisa about that line from the Paterno family... It's ludicrous to say that "everyone shares the responsibility." Many, many people in the society and the Penn State community had nothing to do with this whatsoever.
Correcting what's "broken in (people's) brains" is by definition intimate work. Distant people should not, cannot, and will not accept the assignment. Insisting that they try only brings pathos to the wounded and annoyance to the rest.
Occasionally (but only sometimes) the outside world can bring relief to the beleaguered and justice to the wronged. Demanding love and therapy for the wounded doesn't work out.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 8:21 AM
When you're ship's been righted, you don't complain to strangers about the stink of your bilge; you understand that they've got odors of their own to deal with.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 8:38 AM
YOUR ships.
Damn!
OK, by way of apology, here's a joke.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 8:39 AM
This is relevant.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 13, 2012 9:29 AM
Sordid.
Roger at July 13, 2012 9:38 AM
People who have been so damaged that they think diddling children is just fine don't have as much free will as we want to believe. They can't help themselves, and that's what makes them more dangerous than other kinds of criminals.
Also, Crid, I agree with you that the rest of society has no obligation to these people. Sandusky's family created this mess. The value in figuring out how to fix this sort of damage is in not having it spread to people who have nothing to do with it -- say, other innocent boys. Because if we leave that task to these families ... But we have no clue about how to fix it anyway, so this is all academic. All we can do is put him away.
We have to behave as though these people have free will and are completely in control of their own behavior at adulthood, otherwise the whole legal system collapses. But it seems ridiculous to think at, at 18, a switch flips somewhere and tells people right from wrong.
MonicaP at July 13, 2012 11:48 AM
Why does the family statement seem so familiar to me?
Ah, now I remember. It's from Animal House.
Otter:
"But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]"
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 13, 2012 1:25 PM
What worries me is going back to the witch hunt attitude that lead to the McMartin preschool trial.
Yes -- it happens. When you have people making money off it -- I question it.
Jim P. at July 13, 2012 8:42 PM
Listen, I don't mean to be argumentative and quibble about this, but...
Oh Hell, who am I kidding?
> But it seems ridiculous to think at,
> at 18, a switch flips somewhere and
> tells people right from wrong.
I don't think many people think that. Most people don't concern themselves with the inner lives and personal development of distant strangers at all. And as a distant stranger to almost everyone on this planet, I'm intensely grateful for this... I claim sole credit for the many improvements and retrofits to my interior life which have charmed and delighted friends and passersby across this fruited plain of ours over these recent decades.
(There ain't nobody pokin' around in my personal bees-wax, and I like it that way.)
> Sandusky's family created this mess.
Who knows what they created?
Maybe Sandusky's family they set something in motion, or maybe they didn't. If you think you can get a conviction for some of them, go for it. But either you think we're each responsible for our own conduct or you don't, and you've acknowledged that you do.
I think you're really eager to drop as much weight as possible onto the insight that children of abusers tend to abuse in turn, even if (at least in this discussion or in this election year) you don't want to do anything practical with that insight. Yet.
But I think it's the kind of fortune-cooked belief that isn't as novel or sturdy as people want it to be. Psychology is a young field, and the fads are coming one after the other. To phrase it as 'Well, we know that Y certainly wouldn't have happened if X hadn't happened first' is not only literally false, it makes you look like you're twitching at the chance to slam some serious interference into a lot of private lives.
I was never molested. I know a bunch of people who were. A lot of them moved past it as strong people move past all the the other unpleasantries and disappointments that come with growing up in our corporeal human realm. (A favorite example, I think I used it here last week— The twin turns to his brother: "Why are you an alcoholic?" The brother replies "Because our father was an alcoholic. Why aren't you an alcoholic?" The twin answers: "Because our father was an alcoholic.")
If they'd had some intrusive personage digging around during their formative years –whether from the State, the Church, or just the Well-Meaning Ladies of the Neighborhood Committee— things would not have gone as well.
> It's from Animal House.
For some reason I will always remember the smirking tone in the guy's voice on the words "sit here"... Wonderful.
> What worries me is going back to the
> witch hunt attitude that lead to the
> McMartin preschool trial.
A reasonable worry that I can't lessen at all.
(Let's self-righteously pretend it's a football thing, at least for a few more days. Please?)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 14, 2012 2:59 AM
Best relevant tweet.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 15, 2012 12:10 AM
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