<p>jym - Elizabeth Hoffman resigned, not fired. And she gave 4 months notice ahead. It’s not a cold cut like PSU president.</p>
<p>Bogney, I would hold anyone working with children to that standard. I would bet that if you asked 1000 other people that worked directly with children all of the time as their career choice, you would have a hard time finding even one that would not have acted differently. </p>
<p>Yes, people that do not work with children directly all of the time may have other actions, or hesitate. Not that it is right, but they have not had the same training, instruction, and rules infused into their work environment on a daily basis to draw their decisions from. </p>
<p>In this day and age, if I want to volunteer in a school xeroxing papers for teachers I have to go through “volunteer training”. Much of that explains the rules/laws, how to report infractions, and the safeguards for child safety/abuse. I will not be convinced that penn state does not have those same type of educational programs for staff.</p>
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<p>I agree. I’m just shaking my head…who is asking for perfection? We are saying don’t abandon a child being raped. If you can’t bring yourself to stop it, call someone who will. That should be the minimum standard of conduct; it should hardly be viewed as “moral perfection.”</p>
<p>The one damning quote from Paterno from earlier this week indicates why we will probably not be hearing from him at all on this. He referred to the kids who were attacked or molested as “the kids who were victims, or whatever they want to say.” </p>
<p>Seriously, whatever they want to say? That alone says volumes about the man. It indicates how he views this entire tragedy. He had to go. And it will be a long long time before the majority of people stop reacting to Penn State University with a sense of disgust.</p>
<p>Bogney–I am not sure who here is calling for lynch mobs. i condemn death threats (do I need to say that, really?) and i wonder, as I think someone here asked, where the death threats are coming from–misguided response to his (in)action (not intervening), or misguided response to his action (getting JoePa in trouble)? Or possibly both.</p>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>"An excerpt from the books introduction:</p>
<pre><code>My first real contact with Jerry Sandusky came from a rather odd question he posed to me: How much do you weigh, young man? I was puzzled, because I knew he wasnt interested in me as a linebacker, but I told him I weighed about 95 pounds. Get up on that scale, he ordered. I did and the locker room scale topped out at 96.
Not bad, Jerry said, trying to sound as mean as possible, but you still have some work to do. Sensing my confusion, Jerry stared at me and continued. We gotta get you up to 100 pounds before youre ready to fight me.
Fight him? I barely knew him. When you get to 100 pounds, its gonna be you and me in the center of the locker room in a boxing match. Then Ill show you who the real boss is. Itll be you and me eyeball-to-belly button. That last remark was made in reference to my five-foot height, but I smiled and let it go."
</code></pre>
<p>[Jerry</a> Sandusky book ‘Touched’ riles Amazon customers | Seattle’s Big Blog - seattlepi.com](<a href=“http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/11/11/jerry-sandusky-book-touched-riles-amazon-customers/]Jerry”>http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/11/11/jerry-sandusky-book-touched-riles-amazon-customers/)</p>
<p>Yes, coolweather, I said she resigned. Don’t recall the specifics. Apologies, but I am losing or missing the point of your original question (precedent/president wordplay aside). Can you clarify?</p>
<p>Bogney’s posts remind me, indirectly, of the “obedience to Authority” social psychology studies (eg Stanley Milgram). The question had to do with whether someone will follow orders from a higher authority despite their moral beliefs. Ethics of those studies aside, the point was that a person may not have the ability to make certain decisions in a crisis, or that their decision will be influenced by the power of others. Just a thought.</p>
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<p>How do you know that “few” would have been willing to do more than walk out of the premises, only to make the lamest of gestures the next day? I completely disagree that asking someone to call for help, to put the welfare of a child over one’s own agenda is demanding “moral perfection.” </p>
<p>We do agree on one thing. He does not deserve death threats.</p>
<p>The “right thing” is easy to see with 2020 hindsight by all of us who were not there and who did not have personal relationships with the people involved. I agree that it should have been seen by those involved. Isn’t always doing the “right thing” moral perfection? We strive for that, but I see degrees of culpable for failing to reach it that depend on the particulars.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4 - You have described what should have been done. I was not giving a rationale for not acting as you described. I was simply pointing out that it is unclear what actual harm occurred to the victim, who was already a victim, by McQueary’s failure to confront Sanduskey. Maybe much more harm befall him, maybe none. Turning around and walking did not necessary make the child a victim all over again - that is hyperbole and not based on any facts that I am aware of - we are speculating about the fate of that victim.</p>
<p>Some are saying maybe they all panicked in a crisis. Even if that was the case, the next day, at the next weeks meeting, they all had the chance to think about how they handled then assault , the reporting of the assualt, etc, and even then with cool heads, with a chance to consult with an attorney, to read the rules, these men, who all hand contact with minors, either through coaching, through police work, through volunteer work, etc, with cold calculation, no longer in crisis mode, covered up the rape of a child.</p>
<p>Anyone one of them could have at anytim contacted cps. A daynlater, a week later. Seems no one had a guilty conscious, though they all knew something horrible was going on. </p>
<p>This was not the actions of men in crisis mode, this was a circling of the wagons</p>
<p>jym,
Since you brought up the Milgram experiments:
[Why</a> Penn State Officials Didn’t Call the Police | Yahoo!](<a href=“Health | Yahoo Life”>Health | Yahoo Life)</p>
<p>This article has some rather disturbing points about the differences net the way men and women respond to such things.</p>
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<p>Nope, I completely disagree. That child looked into the GA’s eyes. Surely he had hope of rescue. The GA turned his back on that child and left him to the devices of his attacker. Abandoned. Victimized again-not hyperbole.</p>
<p>Bogney are you serious? That is so scary. Eh, lets just leave the assualt victim, after all they are already hurt. Lets leave the accident victim, after all, the car already hit them. Let’s not do anything for the rape victim, after all, it’s over?</p>
<p>Hey, why even talk about this now, after all it happened years ago!!!</p>
<p>So if say your mom was raped, and someone walked in on it, and said, hey the guys zipping upmhis pants, no biggie?</p>
<p>I am amazed, saddened and appalled that someone even thinks that</p>
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<p>Or he felt unbearable shame. It is not uncommon for victims of rape, at all ages, to feel guilty about it - to feel at fault even. I don’t think we have any idea what went on in the victim’s head, but whether it was dashed hope of being rescued or shame at being seen, it was unimaginably horrible.</p>
<p>Bogney,
The Grand Jury testimony (for what it is worth) states the McQueary CAUGHT THEM IN THE ACT. It was real and observed. And the victim was right there.
This was not suspicions, hearsay, based on merely on evidence.</p>
<p>I am quite sad that you do not see that he had a moral duty to actually help the child being molested. Period.
Yes, we all have psychological reactions to confrontation, scary and disgusting things. Yes, we can be self-interested, overly respectful of the organization we belong to and depend on. Those are explanations for immoral behavior.</p>
<p>What good does it do to excuse someone for such behavior?
Why is it valid to say that others would have done the same???</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
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<p>If the victim felt unbearable shame, guilt, whatever, there was also the possibility that the child could have received some therapeutic interventions to help him recover from those feelings had someone done something at the time.
But as someone said, oh well, he was already a victim. I can’t believe I 'm reading some of this crap. I’m done.</p>
<p>Garland: I did not mean to imply that you were in the crowd giving death threats. My point is simply that demonization happens quickly and easily in discussions about people whom we do not know, who dealt with circumstances that we did not face. Maybe it is appropriate once all the facts are known, but I don’t see it for McQueary at this time.</p>
<p>I am not saying he was right or honorable - he failed to meet the standard we would like to meet in a moment of crisis. He simply does not fall to the “scum” level, etc. based on what I have read about him. </p>
<p>As to the notion that everybody who works with children would have done something differently, Sanduskey worked with children and so do priests. No group of people is inherently more moral than any other group, though many like to believe so. Social workers have failed to act with appalling consequences that make headlines with some frequency. </p>
<p>I am not defending McQueary except in a relative sense. He did not do the right thing. He did an understandable thing. Sanduskey is the monster, not McQuery. The failure to act after calm deliberation is far more appalling to me than falling short in a crisis. The post above referencing the story about maintaining a perfect society on the back of a suffering child in Omelas captures my view of the moral culpability in this situation. A failure of nerve in the pinch is not as bad as a deliberate coverup in my opinion.</p>
<p>Re university presidents ousted in a scandal, don’t forget Larry Summers of Harvard. I know I never will. He was allowed to resign rather than officially being fired, but it was clear that his time was up.</p>
<p>The reason I believe McQuary’s grand jury testimony is that it runs so strongly against his own interests. It makes him look horrendous. True, he thought the testimony would be secret, but it had to lead to indictments, which would be public, and possibly a trial where he would be called as a witness. His name will forever be linked with child rape. ‘Coward’ is the nicest accusation he can hope for. You’d have to be psychotic or at least in a hysterical blind rage to make up a story that makes you look that bad. It’s possible that the memory changed in his mind over time, but his father has corroborated his contemporaneous statement, and at a minimum, he seems sincere. (Fellow lawyers will recognize my respect for the wisdom of the federal rules of evidence even in a context where they don’t apply.)</p>
<p>As I said in the cafe thread: Imagine if it had been a potential murder in progress – if Sandusky had had his hands around the child’s throat, or if he were beating the child’s head against the wall. I don’t think we’d have any debate about whether telling the coach the next day was an adequate response. I can get running away or being paralyzed with fear, unable to act in the moment, from the shock of seeing one’s mentor raping a child. I just can’t comprehend not calling the police later that evening, after collecting oneself. No, none of us know what we’d do in the shock of the moment, but “the moment” doesn’t last 18 hours. I believe there’s no way a reasonable person could sleep before telling every detail, in person, to someone with a badge. This is, in my view, the absolute minimum of action necessary in order not to share moral culpability for the rape. If the story did occur as told, McQuary does share moral culpability.</p>
<p>Why show understanding, and say that morality is a high standard, Bogney???</p>
<p>It is too “excusatory” for me. It is healthy message to the public that it was wrong and not enough in any way.
ps.s he also did not follow up.</p>