Although I’m not an alum of Penn State, during my 10 years in Pennsylvania I spent a lot of time at State College (“Happy Valley”), given that I worked in the dairy industry (and it’s the land grant institution). Maybe that’s why this story turns my stomach inside out. Or maybe it’s the inhuman nature of the tale.
In case you’re tuning in late, on Saturday a grand jury finding of fact (a three-year investigation) revealed that three members of Joe Paterno’s football management were being charged in connection with “a wide-reaching grand jury investigation into reports of the sexual abuse of children.” The time span? 1994 until 2009. The extent of the shame? Jerry Sandusky, former PSU defensive coordinator, “was charged with 40 counts related to sexual abuse of boys.” In 1998, police investigated Sandusky for similar charges but nothing came of the investigation.
Also charged: Timothy Mark Curley, PSU Director of Athletics, and Gary Charles Schultz, PSU Senior Vice President for Finance and Business (oversees PSU Police Department).
Paterno and PSU President Graham Spanier were both fired late on Wednesday by the board of trustees because of their complicity in a cover-up.
I first learned of the horror (that’s what it feels like to me, horrific) Wednesday afternoon when +Steven Levy shared a link to commentary on Yahoo! and expressed his thoughts on the scandal.
“This is a case about a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys,” [Attorney General Linda] Kelly said. “It is also a case about high-ranking university officials who allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy after the information was brought to their attention, and later made false statements to a grand jury that was investigating a series of assaults on young boys.
“I hope people will understand that any suspicion of sexual abuse should be reported to the police,” Commissioner Noonan said. “Sexual abuse is a serious issue and children are often scared to tell anyone about the abuse – many cases are hidden for years – but by informing the police they can stop it.”
When I read the assessment from Dan Wetzel at Yahoo! and then the press statement, I was sick to my stomach. And then I read Wednesday night about thousands of students rioting in support of Paterno. And people on Twitter, like Ashton Kutcher, saying that they couldn’t understand why Paterno was fired. WTH has this world come to?
Look folks.
Paterno knew, in March 2002, that Jerry Sandusky had raped a boy child, estimated age 10, according to the grand jury documents. Mike McQueary, a 28 year old graduate assistant coach and former Penn State quarterback (1994 to 1997), told the grand jury that he entered the football locker room on 1 March 2002 at 9.30 pm and “was surprised to hear the showers running and noises he thought sounded like sexual activity.”
When he looked in the shower he saw what he estimated to be a 10-year-old boy, hands pressed up against the wall, “being subjected to anal intercourse,” by Jerry Sandusky, then 58 and Penn State’s former defensive coordinator. The grad assistant said both the boy and the coach saw him before he fled to his office where, distraught and stunned, the grad assistant telephoned his father, who instructed his son to flee the building.
McQueary said he went to Paterno’s home and told him about the incident the next day. Paterno told athletic director Tim Curley. McQueary later told his story to Gary Schultz, PSU senior vice president for finance and business. No one called the police. “No other legal or university entity investigated the case,” according to Wetzel. Instead:
Curley later met with Sandusky and told him he was no longer allowed to bring children onto the Penn State campus. He forwarded the report on to university president Graham Spanier, who approved of Sandusky’s ban from bringing children onto campus and himself never reported the incident to police.
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The chief question is this: If Curley, Schultz and Spanier believed it was no longer appropriate to allow Sandusky to bring children onto the Penn State campus – an act that suggests some concern over his behavior – how could they possibly believe his actions didn’t warrant a full police investigation?
And that “ban”? Look at what it did not include, according to the Attorney General:
“Despite this so-called ‘ban’, which was reviewed and approved by University President Graham Spanier without any further inquiry on his part, there was no effective change in Sandusky’s status with the school and no limits on his access to the campus,” Kelly said. “Sandusky’s ’emeritus’ position, alleged negotiated as part of his 1999 retirement, provided him with an office in the Lasch Football Building; unlimited access to all football facilities, including the locker room; access to all recreational facilities; a parking pass; a university Internet account; listing in the faculty directory and numerous other privileges – he had remained a regular presence on campus.”
Feeling disgusted yet?
It’s not like Paterno is protesting his innocence:
This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.
Reading between the lines, it looks like Paterno’s cooperation with the AG’s office is why he has not been charged with failure to report this crime when his compatriots were charged:
Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said Nov. 7 that Paterno, 84, isn’t a target of her office’s investigation and that he had cooperated in the inquiry. She wouldn’t comment when asked if Spanier was a target of the probe.
“The failure of top university officials to act on reports of Sandusky’s alleged sexual misconduct, even after it was reported to them in graphic detail by an eyewitness, allowed a predator to walk free for years — continuing to target new victims,” Kelly said in a statement. “Equally disturbing is the lack of action and apparent lack of concern among those same officials, and others who received information about this case, who either avoided asking difficult questions or chose to look the other way.”
But those who are being charged with perjury knew about the prior investigation and yet connected no dots:
During testimony before the grand jury, Schultz acknowledged that he was aware of a 1998 University Police investigation that also involved allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior involving Sandusky and young boys in the football showers, but did not pursue the matter further and did not seek any additional review in light of the new report in 2002.
The grand jury also noted that the 1998 report involving Sandusky and boys in the showers was reviewed by University Police and Child Protective Services… [and] no criminal charges were ever pursued.
President Spanier has been low-key, according to Jezebel:
Spanier has been in office since 1995 and earns $620,000, making him one of the longest-serving and highest-paid college presidents in the country. He hasn’t said anything about the scandal since releasing a statement supporting Tim Curley, the athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the senior vice president for finance and business, who were charged with perjury and failing to report child abuse.
McQueary was also part of the system. He was promoted to administrative assistant in 2003; for the past eight years, he has been a PSU assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. Does this anyone in this story have clean hands?
Addendum (1:16 am Pacific): I understand innocent until proven guilty. But I also understand eyewitness testimony under oath (McQueary) and what seems to be a lack of protestation of innocence on the part of PSU brass. I’m still sick to my stomach, and it’s been almost 12 hours since I first learned of this horror.
Update (1:29 am Pacific): added charge count and prior investigation to graph two. Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist calls for cleaning house: “Paterno’s entire staff must go.”
Update (1:41 am Pacific): added Paterno and Spanier quotes
Update (1:54 am Pacific) : Wow. Harrisburg Patriot-News editorial from Tuesday (pdf). “A leader who lacks moral authority has nothing.” But they let Joe off the hook. [The paper is behind a firewall, so we’ll have to wait for the Newseum again to see what they publish Thursday. The paper uses a different URL for web content. Here’s a Thursday editorial cartoon.]
Update (1:57 am Pacific): There is another question, and Michael Smerconish at Philly.com asks it:
I want to know why Mike McQueary did not take immediate action … without more details, the situation that Mike McQueary encountered on that Friday night in 2002 seems akin to a passerby who witnesses the rape of a woman in an alley and chooses to walk past.
Update (2:01 am Pacific) : Note to media: this is a rape scandal, not a sex scandal:
Sandusky is not accused of “having sex” with little boys, he is accused of raping them. In our civilization, “sex” with a child is not possible, since a child cannot consent to sex. As I half-listened to the news all day today, then, and I heard repeated references to “the Penn State sex scandal,” it pissed me off. It made my blood steam a little bit, like a hot cup of coffee.
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While I’m on the subject, the term “abuse” is also wholly insufficient, although this is a function of our culture, not the media. ”Abuse” has a softness to it, the implication that something acceptable was done to excess. Things like “child abuse,” or “domestic abuse,” or even “sexual abuse” would be more accurately described as “assaults,” and would probably taken more seriously if they were so called.
Update (2:10 am Pacific) from John Cole at Balloon Juice:
My personal guess is that we’ll find out the dozens of people knew, including people on the board, and that there were all sorts of machinations and bribery involving campus police and who knows what else. We may even learn that this was what was behind the attempts to push Paterno out in the early 2000’s.
Update (2:14 am) : Reparation suggestion from Maureen Seaberg at TheDailyBeast:
Penn State sits in the Nittany Valley of Centre County, so encircled by nearby mountains that when rain clouds form, they don’t blow out of the region but stay there, trapped, until every last drop has fallen. And like the actual weather systems of the region, the even darker cloud that’s now descended on the university will likely sit over campus until everything comes out in the wash.
In the meantime, I’d like to see alumni boycott donations to the university this year and instead establish a fund for the alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky.
Only then can we begin to atone for our being blind, and in some ways complicit, for so long.
Update (2:21 am Pacific) : added Business Week quote about Paterno not being charged
Update (2:39 am Pacific) : added AG quote about the “so called ban”
Update (2:59 am Pacific) : From the NY Times – Ray Gricar, the Centre County PA district attorney who chose not to charge Sandusky in 1998, went missing (no body) in 2005. The 1998 case allegedly had Sandusky “showering with an 11-year-old boy.” Gricar’s nephew comments.
According to the grand jury report, Sandusky admitted to taking a naked shower [in 1998] and touching the boy, asked for forgiveness and said, “I wish I were dead.”
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com