Dr. Barron: A letter about your Freeh Report 'review'

Dear President Barron,

On Friday you announced that you would conduct your own review of the raw materials that went into the creation of the Freeh Report. Clearly you are responding to the many calls over the last two years to analyze the report, however I must caution you that this attempt you are making is only destined to fail for the exact same reasons the Freeh Report itself did. The internal, secretive nature of your review is the exact issue which got us here in the first place.

Almost immediately after it's release many critical reviews noticed that Mr. Freeh had taken liberties with his conclusions, omitted key information, and flat out lied. It was quite clear from the moment you pick up this report that it was fatally flawed from the start. One has to look no further than the Appendices where Mr. Freeh can't count to ten correctly; omitting Exhibits 1, 4, 7, 8, and 9. Add to that the fact that virtually none of the key players in the scandal were interviewed, and that reports exist that people who were interviewed felt that investigators were looking for predetermined answers.

Recently of course you are aware that court cases have led to the release of hundreds of emails that show that the Freeh report was biased and corrupted from before Penn State even had a legal engagement contract with Mr. Freeh. Thus the announcement when Mr. Freeh was hired that he would be independent and turn over every stone was a lie. The emails unequivocally show that the NCAA, Big Ten Conference, and the Penn State Special Investigations Task Force led Mr. Freeh where they wanted him to go. In the interest of "moving forward", Penn State (the corporate institution, not the community at large) decided it was most expedient to blame our "football culture" rather than search for hard truths like those Jim Clemente wrote about in his report at www.paterno.com, or the fact that the child welfare system in Pennsylvania is severely flawed (see my posts at on the Tutko and Lee cases at www.no1lion99.blogspot.com or many at www.notpsu.blogspot.com).

Now back to your review. What you appear to be doing is looking at everything in private and then making some kind of an announcement about what you find. This is the same thing Mr. Freeh did. It will fail because people view you as just another tool that the 'old guard' Board will use to hide the truth. I have no doubt you are an intelligent man, and know much better than I how to run our great university. I know there is great political pressure to bear. However your actions of recent months show that you are stuck on the wrong side of this fight. First your email regarding "civility", and then your exit from the recent board meeting to (from what I hear) glad hand some big donors. What could be more important than discovering the real truth here? Now this review. Frankly Dr. Barron, no one puts any trust in your actions regarding the Freeh report. I wish I could say differently, but that's the truth. The only thing likely to come of this is further subpoenas and depositions for the emails, discussions, notes, and conversations that go into your report.

It is for that reason that I urge you to halt this review and immediately open a formal public review. Call for Mr. Freeh to return to campus as his contract demands and answer to the Board and the Penn State community at large. If he is confident in his report he will have no problem coming to defend it. Hold public hearings where both the board and the public can ask critical questions, and immediately release ALL source materials on the Progress website. Until this happens, no amount of 'internal' reviews will quell the public anger, and Penn State will never be allowed to move forward. Surely you can see that multiple courts are going to investigate this matter themselves. It is time for Penn State to come clean, and stop hiding from the truths. I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,
John Yonchuk
Biology '99