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<p>So you wouldn’t have a problem if I got 10 of my friends to accuse your buddy of sexual assault and get you fired? Who cares if there’s no truth? Just accuse–> fire?</p>
<p>hops, I don’t think you are rationally seeing the whole picture. It seems you didn’t even get what I was trying to say. Good luck.</p>
<p>hops_scout,</p>
<p>I don’t think you’re as naive as you’re pretending to be here. University presidents get fired all the time for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reasons at all. It’s a highly political job, they make a lot of enemies, people hold grudges. There may have been people on the Board of Trustees—yes, perhaps including the governor—who were already out for his scalp for other reasons. But even if there weren’t, the Trustees needed to do something dramatic to signal that they weren’t complacent about this scandal. And let’s get real, when someone who had been as powerful a figure in the Penn State football program as Sandusky–and who maintained as close ties with the program as he allegedly did–publicly admits to showering with young boys and hugging them while naked, and is accused by a grand jury and a long series of unrelated victims of going well beyond that, and officials at the University are accused of doing nothing about it and lying to cover it up, it’s a scandal of enormous proportions. Someone’s head had to roll. And when it’s that big, it’s going to be the president. It has to be. Anything less would look like another attempt at a whitewash. It just comes with the territory. I don’t hear Spanier griping that he got a raw deal, or other university presidents rushing to his defense. It doesn’t matter what he knew or when he knew it, it was his university, he’s the guy in charge, and it happened on his watch. That’s enough. He’s gone. And if the Trustees don’t fire him, the public would be clamoring to shut the whole dang thing down.</p>
<p>As for JoePa, I think he really wrote his own walking papers when he arrogantly and publicly instructed the Trustees to “pay no attention to the man behind that curtain,” telling them he had taken care of his end of it by announcing his retirement at the end of the season and that they had much more important things to do than to focus on him. Until then I wasn’t sure they were going to fire him, but once he took that posture they had no choice. Here was the face not only of the football program but in many ways of the university, setting himself as bigger than the Board of Trustees and master of his own destiny, and worse, setting himself up as beyond accountability for a major scandal that had rocked his football program. For them not to fire him after that would make the Trustees look meek, submissive, totally ineffectual, and again, as if they were not taking the magnitude of the scandal seriously. Really, really stupid move on JoePa’s part, and proof in itself (as if we needed more) that he had become so full of himself and his own legend, so far out of touch with reality, and saw himself as so far outside the normal lines of accountability, that he needed to go. I don’t know what JoePa knew or when he knew it, but publicly admitting that in retrospect he should have done more is all anyone needed. If someone comes to you and says a child has been raped by someone you know, or even if they come to you and tells you someone you know was seen showering with a young child–in your locker room, no less–and possibly touching them in inappropriate ways, you don’t just tell your superior and leave it at that. Not even if you’re JoePa. In retrospect he understood that, and publicly admitted it. The Trustees can’t just look the other way when those are the facts (or even just the allegations) on the table. Common human decency aside, just for the sake of appearances if nothing else, they need to act quickly and decisively to signal to the public that they’re taking it all very seriously and that nobody, not even JoePa is beyond accountability, the way he attempted to set himself up to be.</p>
<p>I refuse to believe you’re so naive as not to understand that.</p>
<p>As far as Paterno’s firing is concerned, I think whether or not he had a conttract would be important to know, and what was in it. I believe the PA is an “at will” state. So the BOT could ultimately fire him for almost anything. The fact that Spanier is a tenured teacher is the only reason he is allowed to stay. Not sure about McQ yet.</p>
<p>Also, do not forget that the BOT tried to fire Paterno 4-5 years ago…so he was already on shakey ground.</p>
<p>hops,</p>
<p>Not sure what you are arguing. Paterno has not, as far as I know, been accused of molesting anyone. The allegations against Sandusky however, whether they are true or not, deserved serious scrutiny. Paterno and the Board agree that he should have done more to ensure that he matter was reviewed thoroughly and appropriately resolved. He didn’t.</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that Paterno was fired because he was accused of sexual misconduct? I think not. Are you suggesting that Sandusky, who stands accused of sexual misconduct, should not have been fired? I don’t believe he was. </p>
<p>Please clarify.</p>
<p>Thank you, bclintonk. Hopefully, hops can move on and forward a little bit from that.</p>
<p>As I said upthread, CEOs don’t get due process, and both Spanier and Paterno were CEOs. Whether or not they really lost the confidence of their Board isn’t clear, but it is clear that they had lost the confidence of the governor, and at a public institution that’s not a good thing. Whether they “deserved” to be fired for any other reason is besides the point. The Board of Trustees really had no choice in the matter. The governor wanted them gone, and took the extraordinary step of showing up at a board meeting to demand it. (He is a member of the board ex oficio, but doesn’t generally participate.)</p>
<p>That said, it isn’t hard at all to understand why a Trustee might want to fire them anyway, based not on what they did or didn’t do in 2002, or 1998, or 2003-2007, or anytime other than 2011. In 2011, they (a) obviously failed to prepare the Board for what was coming, and failed to make certain every member of the Board even knew that something was up, (b) failed to have a contingency plan to protect Penn State when the shoes finally started to drop, and (c) failed to take any effective steps to reduce Penn State’s exposure while they were waiting for the indictment. That’s the kind of stuff that gets you fired, whether the original problem was your fault or not.</p>
<p>Then – at least as far as Paterno is concerned – there is the difficulty he would have answering the following three questions in any coherent, admirable way, regarding his behavior from 2002 forward:</p>
<p>What did you do to protect children?
What did you do to protect Penn State?
What did you do to make certain this situation didn’t reoccur?</p>
<p>I don’t think Paterno can possibly have satisfactory answers to those questions, and they don’t have anything to do with whether he committed a crime or how many details he knew about Sandusky.</p>
<p>Paterno- Fired
Spanier- demoted…</p>
<p>Well Mr JHS, that is good work right there. You sir, are being transferred into the honors class.</p>
<p>Great post bclintonk.</p>
<p>Another thing that has occurred to me in the past few days is that Penn State is facing enormous liability from any victims that were victimized on their premises. While Sandusky was their employee they were to a point responsible for his conduct. The board of trustees has retained a very expensive legal firm to advise them in in the event there are civil lawsuits, which I think is inevitable. (I don’t have the link.) This may have entered into their thinking when they fired Spanier and Paterno.</p>
<p>At any rate, as other posters have pointed out, the standards that a board of trustrees is held to in the decision to terminate someone is much lower than in a court of law. There is no presumption of innocence of standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. I think an employee just has to be in violation of their contract.</p>
<p>2 trustees say they were given no notice of the investigation:</p>
<p>[Two</a> PSU trustees claim no prior knowledge of scandal - News - Standard Speaker](<a href=“http://standardspeaker.com/news/two-psu-trustees-claim-no-prior-knowledge-of-scandal-1.1234200#axzz1e5KNRe9a]Two”>http://standardspeaker.com/news/two-psu-trustees-claim-no-prior-knowledge-of-scandal-1.1234200#axzz1e5KNRe9a)</p>
<p>Sounds like Spanier’s public statements in support of Curley and Schultz were part of the reason he got booted. I understand that reasoning; those statements should have been cleared by the trustees. I doubt they would have been okayed…and Spainer is smart enough to know that.</p>
<p>I have a different take on Paterno and his announcing his retirement.</p>
<p>The child abuse allegations broke late on the night of Nov.5. </p>
<p>Most people read the GJ report on Nov 6. </p>
<p>The grand jury report took most people by surprise. They had no idea of the graphic nature and horrible actions that Sandusky was accused of. This includes Paterno and Spanier.</p>
<p>It took a day at least for the ground swell of anger and hatred to build.</p>
<p>Joe Paterno offered up his resignation on the 9th in the day after 61 years of working for PSU. He was also fired on the 9th.</p>
<p>I think that Joe Paterno was trying to do the right thing. I do not believe he was trying to “get ahead of the board of trustees” by announceing his retirement. I think he truely believed he was helping the board move on by announceing his retirement.</p>
<p>That is a very quick time frame to take action when people were only just getting to understand the severity of Sanduskys actions. Again these actions were all based on the grand jury report.</p>
<p>I would also like to ask what the definition of a “PSU apologist” is. Is this a term created here on CC or is this a national term.</p>
<p>I will say it really makes me extremely angry for people to create and label other people in order to create a false “us vs them” mentality.</p>
<p>So the committee set up by Penn state to invetigate was made up people who all had a close connection to Penn state. The professors group issued a statement that a totally independent committee with no Penn state connections should be created.</p>
<p>Did Penn state an insider committee would be enough? man, they are one insulated institution</p>
<p>Hey Penn state, the rest of the world is watching</p>
<p>And there are those that seem to be in denial about what a mess the Penn state cabal have crested</p>
<p>Wow, I just got a CNN bulletin that Paterno has a treatable form of lung cancer. No other details.</p>
<p>Reported also in the Centre Daily Times:</p>
<p>[Joe</a> Paterno has lung cancer, son says | News | CentreDaily.com](<a href=“http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/18/2991458/joe-paterno-has-lung-cancer-son.html]Joe”>http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/18/2991458/joe-paterno-has-lung-cancer-son.html)</p>
<p>Apparently Paterno was diagnosed last weekend. Not a good week for him.</p>
<p>NCAA starts investigation of PSU.</p>
<p>[NCAA</a> will investigate Penn State scandal - chicagotribune.com](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/chi-ncaa-will-investigate-penn-state-scandal-20111118,0,6240605.story]NCAA”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/chi-ncaa-will-investigate-penn-state-scandal-20111118,0,6240605.story)</p>
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<p>There are a couple of things wrong with this analysis.</p>
<p>First of all, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that prior to November 5 neither Paterno nor Spanier had any idea of the graphic nature of the accusations. Both of them had testified before the grand jury, and it was clearly at issue (a) what McQueary had told Paterno, (b) what Paterno had told Curley, and (c) what anyone had told Spanier. Unless the AG’s office was massively incompetent, Paterno’s session before the grand jury would have included some very specific, fairly graphic questions – especially given that Paterno’s own description of his conversation with McQueary seems to have differed from what McQueary told them. Spanier must have been asked similar questions. </p>
<p>Even if before his grand jury appearance Paterno really, truly had no idea that McQueary had seen anything but horseplay that upset him, even if Paterno had never heard a whisper about Sandusky’s issues to that point, after his testimony he had to be on notice that this was a BFD, in every possible sense.</p>
<p>Secondly, Paterno issued a press statement on Sunday 11/6 that apparently hadn’t been coordinated with the university. It was widely reported that the Board of Trustees was considering firing Paterno, and that he had refused to meet with them and had communicated that he would like to coach the rest of the season then retire. His son flatly denied that there were any discussions of his retirement, though. And with the Board scheduled to meet on Wednesday afternoon, explicitly to discuss Spanier and Paterno, among other things, Paterno put out a press release stating his intention to retire at the end of the season, and saying that the Board should not waste any more time discussing his status.</p>
<p>If that’s not getting ahead of the Board, I don’t know what is. When I read the press release Wednesday afternoon, my reaction was that if I were on the Board that alone would be cause to terminate him. Plain and simple, he was trying to dictate terms to the board through the press – something he had a history of doing before this incident.</p>
<p>I am not saying that he’s a bad person, or a bad football coach. But he is, and has been for a long time, a terrible, arrogant employee. And this time he really miscalculated the value of the cards he held vs. the cards in others’ hands.</p>
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<p>They’re caving to public opinion. This isn’t an NCAA matter.</p>