1) These victims are going to own Happy Valley, and a good portion of central Pennsylvania.
2) Holy Stupid Thing To Write Down, Batman
I didn't see any other existing email than this screen shot so I may be speaking with only having partial info...but...
legally speaking, can you really tie this email to this scandal? Common sense says yes, but is there enough there to make a concrete link?
To be useful (or admissible) they'd have to establish a connection to the scandal. But if I were a betting man, they'll be able to link this to the Sandusky stuff.
I believe. PSU has never. a had a major. NCAA violation. Maybe this is the reason why.
Isn't the bar lower?
Ugh... makes me want to throw up. I hope this is the worst of it because I can't take too many more of these stories coming out.
Remember all the talk when this first broke about kicking Penn State out of the Big Ten, or even the Death Penalty? I think they are going to do that to themselves based on the fact that information of the cover up keeps on dropping... sheesh, Penn State will no longer be a major University soon at this rate... As BiSB stated, the victims are going to own Penn State.
This story gets sadder and sadder by the day. I would like to think that they would have done the right thing when the accusations involved children... absolutely sickening... I know neither Bo nor Woody, both rest in peace, would have let this go down this way.
I actually agree, but at this rate they will do it themselves.
Punishing an entire community for the acts of a few is cruel and unusual punishment.
Yes, this is nauseating, but the sins belong to those who did the covering up, not all of Penn State.
I know Joe Pa did a lot of great things for that school and its students,but i wonder if more comes out how that school will view him.
is probably how the current administration feels
Cutting the football program would entail removing scholarships from current players, yes? How is that fair to them? They had nothing to do with the scandals. Your anger at PSU is fully understandable but punishing current players who I think it's safe to say had nothing to do with the scandalous incidents is simply wrong.
Why would cutting the football program remove scholarships from anyone? PSU could keep paying out all of the current scholarships without fielding a team; I guess they could choose not to pay scholarships, but one last PR nightmare over their former football team probably isn't what they want.
1) That's not how "cruel and unusual punishment" works.
2) When the "few individuals" involved are powerful forces at the university, it isn't unreasonable to punish the university. It isn't like they'd be punishing PSU because of some drunk sophomore frat guy.
But a public university is essentially a charitable institution intended for the public good. Private corporations that have capital (i.e. are solvent) can be punished monetarily, sending the signal to its shareholders that they shouldn't put their capital in the hands of knuckleheads. Here, you would (potentially, at the extreme) accomplish elimination of the largest public university in Pennsylvania at the expense of the entire citizenry of Pennsylvania. From the perspective of Pennsylvania, there is no "them" here to blame, only "us."
I have not heard it discussed much, but as a lawyer I would be shocked if Penn State is not entitled to sovereign immunity as an arm of the state. (I'm not a Pennsylvania attorney and I don't know whether Pennsylvania gave PSU immunity from suits. If they didn't, they might want to consider it for the future for its public universities.)
from what I've read, it's murky. Both are protected from FOIA requests (at least to some extent) and have argued for years that they're not a state arm. Neither is considered a public school in PA, but are "state-related". The NYT quoted a Philadelphia lawyer claiming that this would allow suits to be filed, although there were quotes from a Duke Law professor saying otherwise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/sports/ncaafootball/penn-state-offici…
1. A lawyer who knows the most detailed and minute points of law or is an exceptionally competent lawyer
2. The ultimate in crooked lawyers
Interesting, thanks.
agrees with your statement that punishing everyone for the acts of a few is bad. That is all.
That in many cases, several people are punished for the acts of a few. Had Penn State immediately taken away the creep's office and other perks and called the cops, this might not be an issue. I think it's a bit of a cover up and perhaps the program should face the consequences.
Because the mistakes, though unbelievably disgusting and unforgivable, shouldn't bring down an entire university.
I think you and I have a very different opinion of what a mistake is. A kid shoplifting is a mistake. A coordinated effort to cover up and allow child rape is not a mistake. They chose to keep the image of the athletic department and the university over the welfare of children vulnerable from an unstable homelife. Spanier, Curley, Schultz, and Paterno all schemed to keep this a secret for the benefit of themselves and the university. The university atheletic department benefitted by keeping their money from lawsuit, their image and Joe Paterno's image intact, and the alumni and donators are none the wiser.
They knew what they were doing, they knew there were ramifications, they knew they were taking a risk. This is an excerpt from an email Spainer sent:
The report goes on to cite an email Spanier allegedly sent, saying in part, "I am supportive. ... The only downside for us is if the message isn't heard and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road."
This is not a mistake. This is a cover up to keep the money flowing into the AD and to the university in general. Curley even said that Sandusky should get professional help! Now, should PSU be kicked out of the Big 10? No. They should have what they were trying to preserve by covering this up taken away from them. The football team should take a hit. Whether it be money, scholarship limitations, TV blackouts, practice time, bowl bans, I don't know. You may say what did the current players do to deserve this? Let them transfer without penalty. This is a very unfortunate incedent and it's hard to see any good coming from it.
It makes me wonder, is the football program under a single NCAA sanction right now?
The NCAA should use this as an object lesson and penalize the team so that other schools understand you don't break the law just to further a sport.
Matt Hinton at CBS Sports wrote an interesting piece against the Death Penalty for Penn State earlier this week. He acknowledges the moral strength behind the argument, but argues that it wasn't done with the intention of gaining an advantage for the football team, so it therefore isn't really doesn't fall under the NCAA's mandate. Unfortunately, I have to agree that Penn State shouldn't get the axe, but on a technical basis rather than his argument.
To me, the point of not going to law enforcement with the information was probably done to prevent the scandal that has erupted, which I think would have been done to help the football team. Sandusky was directly associated with the team, so the coverup points to not a lack of institutional control, which is punishable by the NCAA, but a complete lack of institutional morality. However, peoples' crimes have never been punished by the NCAA and it probably sets a bad precedent to start. Besides, this isn't a circumstance covered in the NCAA rulebook and a death penalty imposition would probably not stand up to the civil suit Penn State would be forced to launch to stop it.
As for Big 10 membership...I'm really not sure what I'd do. Being kicked out of the conference and the AAU would be a much worse fate for Penn State than any NCAA penalty, but my guess is that wouldn't stand up in court either. These types of unions typically don't have provisions to kick members out.
Penn State football is comprised of a hundred current athletes, a bunch of staff, thousands of former players and many more fans. You don't axe the whole program because 4 men acted horribly. In fact, it sounds like the leadership was going to report the incident until they talked with Paterno. Anybody stickng up for "poor" JoePa needs their head examined.
What the fuck were they thinking? The whole thing makes me sick.
Ugh.....please let this be the end? I'm sickened to see what else is out there
I'm not sure about that, but I'd put them on double secret probation.
PSU needs to make some changes, far beyond just replacing a few criminal administrators. I'd like to see what they do. So far I'm completely unimpressed.
This is an institution in which every person in authority in a position to stop a child molestor decided to hinder legal investigations, apparently even when it meant breaking the law. Their identity as an institution was overshadowed by their worship of a man and his football program, and the myth that he and they were morally superior. Even when a prosecutor finally decided to pursue the case, he waited until Paterno set the career win record before filing charges. Even so, he complained during Sandusky's trial about the continuing lack of cooperation from PSU.
I'm sure most Penn Staters are fine people and were genuinely disgusted by what went on. At the same time it certainly seemed that the outrage of many was the strongest when it came to how Paterno had been treated. In response PSU offered to name the stadium after him, without waiting to see where this investigation ultimately goes. .
At the very least, PSU needs to do a thorough self-examination. Somebody like Jerry Sandusky could be anywhere. But the reasons he was enabled need to be addressed. I expected they would take some steps to rein in the football program and to cleanse it thoroughly. A new coach gets hired from the outside, but he is allowed to retain the assistants he wanted. Setting the football program back by losing a top-notch recruiter was just not an option. I realize that cutting loose all of the coaches isn't necessarily fair to them, but this wasn't a situation that called for giving them the benefit of the doubt either.
came off too strongly on my part. It was a visceral reaction to this very disturbing news, and I don't support throwing them out based on this one email. I do support going through a conference hearing with that as the harshest punishment, though, and I do think that hearing will start pointing to either incredibly harsh sanctions or expulsion.
I could get behind either expulsion or the Big Ten appointing a trustee to oversee PSU's athletic department for a set length of time, after which they could possibly be "reinstated" or whatever term would be applicable for a department that lost its autonomy. Either would accomplish the goal of maintaining the conference's reputation and setting a precedent for "what not to do" when high ranking university officials hear news of child molestation, and hopefully prevents actions like theirs in the future.
One of the biggest things I've learned in corporate america is that you never, ever, ever, ever send anything in an email that you wouldn't want brought up in court, on the front page of the newspaper, read on TV, etc. I can't believe that two guys this high up in a major university would make that mistake
That was their mistake? Putting it in an email?
How about letting a child rapist act freely under their umbrella for a decade?
Well yes, obviously that. But given they were covering it up, I was surprised they were dumb enough to email about it
...and even today, I think we are still working throught the dangers of technology. Just look at how many people shoot themselves in the foot with Facebook for example.
after everyone.
He was probably intending to create a pause in the reading
From Curley to Spanier, carbon copy to Schultz.
Here are three people that I hope see some jail time for that. Holy incredibly self-serving and incriminating e-mail, Batman.
I don't know if the Big Ten needs to kick Penn State out - things like this, if there is in fact more (please, no more - it's sick enough as it is) might make them so irrelevant that it might not even matter now. If there is anything worse than this attached to PSU, I don't think I want to know.
It's hard exactly to figure out how to punish PSU. I mean on one hand their medical center treated my mother and many other people for cancer. I have no desire to see that burned to the ground.
On the other hand they enacted a coverup of child rape to keep the legacy of Paterno and their sports program intact. The punishment clearly needs to be PSU restitution to the victims. They also need to very clearly admit fault and the football program needs to suffer in some way. TV ban, bowl ban, something in the history books regarding it. Basically they tried to bury their head in the sand to keep the stain of child rape off their program, so now that stain needs to be afixed in a way that it can't be removed.
The really sad part is if Sandusky had just been outed and handed over to the cops the moment PSU found out, PSU would not have their legacy tarnished. No one would blame Paterno for lacking some sixth sense that let him detect Sandusky raped kids in his free time. The coverup only made everything worse. It gave Sandusky more time to prey on victims and it threatens a large research school now. Society loses twice because of it.