Heads Roll

This from C-J:

The Penn State University board of trustees did the right thing by firing both university President Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno for their culpability in the child sex abuse scandal rocking the school and the nation. Clearly, though, the board’s work is just beginning.

The riotous support of a mob of Penn State students for the legendary coach shows a disconnect as disturbing as those found in the grand jury report that listed eight allegations of sexual abuse of children by longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

The student outpouring brought out police, riot gear and tear gas, and summoned another distasteful reminder of a culture that seems to value sports and notches in the “win” column above all else — including protecting young children, whose ages are not far removed from that of the clamorous students, and answering life’s moral and legal imperatives.

Maybe that culture has infected many of the young people who attend Penn State, for the same document outlines, in outrageous detail, criminal and moral disconnects by the school’s so-called leaders, lapses that strike the heart and sicken the soul.

Responsible adults at Penn State — including top administrators and Mr. Paterno — knew of eyewitness accounts of Mr. Sandusky molesting children up to 13 years ago, yet they did nothing to stop him or hold him accountable.

Mr. Paterno, long lauded for his commitment to integrity, did “what I was supposed to do,” as he said. That meant he notified the school’s athletics director of one such eyewitness account, described in the report as an on-campus rape of a child by Mr. Sandusky. The man revered by students as JoePa did not call the police for that child, but he did go on to amass a historic record of football wins.

Mr. Spanier and Mr. Paterno, damaged goods, have been jettisoned by the university. But that’s not enough.
If the school is to heal and grow from an apparently hideous dereliction of duty, the board must insist on a thorough, pitiless examination of what enabled that dereliction to happen in the first place and to continue unchallenged. The university must also insist that these perspectives become part of the education that Penn State offers its students, as a sizable number of them appear to be confused about whom the law, and empathy, identify as the victims in these circumstances.

It’s time Happy Valley learned the whole truth.