One of the recent interactions I had was with Adam Collyer of the Penn State site Black Shoe Diaries. Adam tweeted this initially:
For those unaware "Erickson" is PSU President Rodney Erickson. This initiated a brief back and forth between myself and Adam. Where he reiterated that he felt the email was "completely insane":
There it is in black and white. President Erickson just held every single member of the "University community" accountable for the horrible actions of one man. He called us all guilty. He said it was all of our faults. He labeled faculty, staff, students, and alumni child rape enablers.
So when you look at it again and try to remove the emotion that comes with child abuse, think of that statement when you feel the need to label others "insane" Mr. Collyer. Yes what Jerry Sandusky did is gruesome, despicable, unforgivable, and criminal. I am entirely comforted knowing he will spend the rest of his life where he can't hurt another child. However when it comes to the reputation of our still great university, it's hard to argue that Mr. Erickson didn't play a large role in damaging us for the entire world to see with his press release and subsequent actions. He stood on a pedestal and called us all guilty. He called us all enablers. Fed the absurd media narrative that this was about football. Mr. Sandusky was one grotesque man, who never claimed to be speaking on behalf of the 600,000 plus living alumni, students, faculty, staff, and fans who call ourselves part of the Penn State community. Mr Erickson stood on a soap box and did exactly that. He spoke for us. He told the word we were guilty. Insane? Not in my world.
For those unaware "Erickson" is PSU President Rodney Erickson. This initiated a brief back and forth between myself and Adam. Where he reiterated that he felt the email was "completely insane":
So I wanted to break this down and actually look at how "insane" it was to believe what the initial emailer believed about Rodney Erickson.
Let's review the basic background facts. In November of 2011 Jerry Sandusky was indicted on dozens of counts of child sexual abuse. Some of these indicted charges were alleged to have taken place on the campus of PSU, and several officials at PSU were alleged to have varying levels of knowledge about two possible incidents at PSU. To this day the only person who has been shown via due process in a court of law to have done anything wrong or criminal is Jerry Sandusky. In fact a close examination of the facts of the only other charges pending against PSU officials (Curley, Spanier, and Schultz) shows that almost all of the charges likely won't hold up once we enter a court of law (see notpsu.blogspot.com or www.sanduskyreports.com for detailed analyses).
In the meantime Louis Freeh produced an error-ridden and farcical "report" supposedly showing some sort of nefarious cover-up in order to protect the PSU football program from.....well no one really knows what they would be "hiding". Top tier graduation rates? Exemplary service to the university? Fantastic contributions to society? A world class library system? It's really hard to say.
After the Freeh report was released in Jul 2012 the NCAA announced that it had entered into a consent decree with PSU officials in order to sanction the football program. By doing this the NCAA bypassed all of it's by-laws and normal investigative procedures and simply accepted at face value everything that Freeh alleged in order to impose the worst sanctions in the history of the institution (side note: if you read chapter 8 of the Freeh report it actually states that Freeh found no evidence that anyone violated child abuse reporting statutes). In conjunction with the release of the consent decree the President of Penn State released this statement:
Against this backdrop, Penn State accepts the penalties and corrective actions announced today (July 23) by the NCAA. With today’s announcement and the action it requires of us, the University takes a significant step forward.The NCAA ruling holds the University accountable for the failure of those in power to protect children and insists that all areas of the University community are held to the same high standards of honesty and integrity.
There it is in black and white. President Erickson just held every single member of the "University community" accountable for the horrible actions of one man. He called us all guilty. He said it was all of our faults. He labeled faculty, staff, students, and alumni child rape enablers.
So when you look at it again and try to remove the emotion that comes with child abuse, think of that statement when you feel the need to label others "insane" Mr. Collyer. Yes what Jerry Sandusky did is gruesome, despicable, unforgivable, and criminal. I am entirely comforted knowing he will spend the rest of his life where he can't hurt another child. However when it comes to the reputation of our still great university, it's hard to argue that Mr. Erickson didn't play a large role in damaging us for the entire world to see with his press release and subsequent actions. He stood on a pedestal and called us all guilty. He called us all enablers. Fed the absurd media narrative that this was about football. Mr. Sandusky was one grotesque man, who never claimed to be speaking on behalf of the 600,000 plus living alumni, students, faculty, staff, and fans who call ourselves part of the Penn State community. Mr Erickson stood on a soap box and did exactly that. He spoke for us. He told the word we were guilty. Insane? Not in my world.
