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</p>
<p>Finally! I only wish it were unpaid. Hopefully he’ll be fired quickly.</p>
<p>"So many young lives traumatized by the culture of silence and protection–very troubling. "</p>
<p>very well summarized Himom!</p>
<p>I hope the students at Penn State will soon realize that THAT is the issue that has appalled so many- PLUS the coverup and the cowardly lack of follow through- all to preserve the false legend of a “faultless” football program.</p>
<p>The other thing that I don’t understand is why we idolize someone who has had a plum job for 40-some years? It truly seems selfish to me. Without a doubt others could have filled his shoes and shared in the glory, learned his skills, and developed as top coaches. Over the course of 40+ years there could have been many such someones.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is a sexual abuse advocate and has chimed in with some interesting questions to ponder
One of which is that she hopes that in all of the evil that has been exposed by this , is her hope that we all will become more aware of our responsibilities to protect children when we suspect they might be at risk
I myself have asked myself if I could have done more when my instincts told me a child was in trouble…and when the " system " may have failed , would my suspicions , if spoken out loud made a difference in a young girl’s life ?</p>
<p>Back to Humanities!</p>
<p>There is the so-called “moral dilemma”, where a person has to choose between two options, both of which have good and bad results.</p>
<p>I am not seeing that there was a TRUE moral dilemma here. If Paterno or others had gone to outside authorities to report the crime and made sure there was an investigation which they fully contributed to, the negative repercussions do not weigh the same to the positive: saving other kids from abuse is more important than preserving one’s job or even a university football program or the funds raised by that program or even the local economy.
Some, may disagree… or did in their actions, if they even thought it through in terms of consequences of their decision to report or not…</p>
<p>Then there is the relative heinousness or immorality or even danger of the crime. Some consider that when they decide whether or not to report.</p>
<p>Then there is the issue of self-interest.</p>
<p>Anyway, humans are incredibly fallible, for sure. To preserve society we have to enforce rules and moral behavior somehow. We cannot always rely on the legal or judicial system to be in place for this, so sometimes a person must to act on her/his own based on conscience, morality, and sense of right and wrong.
A society is only as good as the individuals in it.</p>
<p>Is this being portrayed as if McQueary is on paid leave to “protect” him from the threats. Or because there were protests about him staying on while others were removed.</p>
<p>Anyway, is Curley on paid or unpaid leave?
Both should really be unpaid imo</p>
<p>lje, I think alot of us have put ourselves in Paterno’s shoes this week, and McQueary’s, and asked how we would have acted. I hope and believe that I would have acted immediately to get this monster behind bars. But I can kind of see how McQueary might have frozen in the moment – a shocking, rub-your-eyes event involving a powerful man at an institution where you want to stay emloyed – I can see where you might be paralyzed by pure shock and fear. But to live with that knowledge for NINE YEARS as the predator continued his rampage, and never re-think your initial inaction, never pick up the phone and call authorities, never ask how the investigation was going or even if there WAS an investigation? With the vision of that boy in your mind all of that time? That I KNOW I couldn’t do. It would eat me alive.</p>
<p>But to live with that knowledge for NINE YEARS as the predator continued his rampage, and never re-think your initial inaction, never pick up the phone and call authorities, never ask how the investigation was going or even if there WAS an investigation? </p>
<p>This statement may well be true but we do not know for certain yet</p>
<p>[The</a> plaque honoring fired Penn State President Graham Spanier, a 1966 graduate of Highland Park High School, was removed Thursday from the lobby of the North Shore school in the midst of a child sex-abuse scandal that has also claimed famed football](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-highland-park-plaque-1111-20111111,0,4282727.story]The”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-highland-park-plaque-1111-20111111,0,4282727.story)</p>
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</p>
<p>Tom–</p>
<p>Paterno himself has admitted he “should have done more.” He knows. </p>
<p>whether or not it rises to the level of legal misdeeds, we don’t know. But we do know, as human beings, even if he what he was told by Mcqueery was vague, which we have to know it was not, judging by the fact that he called the meeting at his house the next day, morally, ethically, he knows he should have done more to protect the children.</p>
<p>If he is even 10% the man his supporters make him out to be, even if he was in denial before his firing, he is going to feel responsible for allowing a predator to continue to have keys to his locker room and shower, and for continuing to de-facto support him by not forcing him to completely disaffiliate from the athletic dept.</p>
<p>That Sandusky had an office in the athletic facilities and access to those facilities, where at the very least Paterno knew of one sexually inappropriate situation, is, to say the least, something he will regret, if he is not a monster. he will not defend his lack of action, if he has any integrity at all, which is why I assume his attorney will never allow him to speak. The only appropriate response to children being raped in your shower and allowing the perp to keep the keys and an office is “I’m sorry. I was derelict in my duty to protect the children who think we are heroes. I should have paid more attention and done more.”</p>
<p>Moderator’s Note
Please note that discussing moderation, including references to deleted posts, is not permitted on College Confidential. Ad hominem attacks are also not permitted. Further posts in that vein may result in closing this thread.</p>
<p>Chedva
Moderator</p>
<p>poet- but what does I needed to do more mean- does it mean he never asked about the an investigation or does it mean terrible things happened and no matter what I did I needed to do more?
Also I agree he should have done more in hindsight but does he deserve to be vilified if he thought at the time he had done enough? That is certainly different than participating in a cover up which it seems many here are accusing him of.</p>
<p>Earlier I posted that I had heard Sandusky was a tenured professor. That was followed up with someone posting he was a professor emeritus. We asked- I was told- that the title carried privileges. Those may have included a campus office.</p>
<p>LasMa
The situation at PSU has made me question what would I do when faced with a dilemma such as this
My experience was this :
Living in a very rural environment , and having the closest neighbor , a man with two young daughters , the same ages as one of mine and also my step daughter ( who coincidentally is a freshman at PSU ) </p>
<p>He had custody of his girls …and clearly had a drinking problem as well as a fondness for growing and smoking pot
When out daughters , now both 21 were in 6th grade , his daughter , who he made a point to constantly compare to mine as far as academics announced at school that she thought she was pregnant , and the father was her OWN father…
An investigation went down by DYFS and he mocked it ( bragging publically in the presence of two of my employees ) how he wanted to ask the social worker out on a date…
In the back of my mind as well as my husband’s we felt the allegations were correct , but didn’t witness anything concrete that we could go forth with.</p>
<p>I helped the children in other ways through the years in ways I thought would make their lives easier , but I do wonder if I could have done more</p>
<p>Now my daughter is successful at a top university with a great future ahead of her
The other girl is an unwed mother living in the community of illegal Mexican immigrants </p>
<p>I don’t know if I could have done more , or would my interference have made things worse than they already were.</p>
<p>Tom</p>
<p>Well, maybe he should have done more to get him off the campus?</p>
<p>I don’t know what HE means by he should have done more.</p>
<p>I know what I think he should have done, but I DO know HE believes he should have done more. I suspect, as the days go by and he no longer has football to distract himself, and he has to sit there with what happened to these kids, it will become verrrrry clear to him all the “more” he should have done.</p>
<p>For example, looking into it. Calling child protective services. blah, blah, blah.</p>
<p>What Paterno could have done is quite a bit. He will see that what he did was the bare minimum, and if he is half the man his supporters seem to believe he is, he will see the hypocricy of having made a career of asking his players to do the extra thing and give more than 100% to their job while phoning it in in his own.</p>
<p>You did the best you could and what you thought was best. You do not deserve scorn because the situation did not end better than it did.</p>
<p>I had lunch yesterday with a commercial insurance salesperson and he commented that “70% of the people in the U.S. have been molested in their lifetime.” Now, I don’t know if that’s correct, but his comment left me wondering.</p>
<p>BUT even beyond my wondering, I thought about Joe Pa and the rest. Sandusky was observed molesting a victim in the shower. HOW DOES anyone not take that to the police? I can tell you that personally, I would’ve barged into the shower to rescue the victim and probably beaten the <em>(Y&^(</em>& out of Sandusky. I just can’t get my mind around not reporting the incident to the police.</p>
<p>poet- if he was told the police investigated and it was a shabby investigation is it his fault. He could have done more but would that be expected for most of us? I will be very critical of him if we find out he never questioned anyone after the initial report to Curly and Schultz. I think if he was told they investigated I would cut him some slack.</p>
<p>lje, you did what you could and wondered if you could have done more. That’s the difference between you and the powerful men of Penn State.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that the only reason McQueary hasn’t been removed is that he was technically the “whistleblower” and may have some protection from job actions. I think he’s been placed on paid leave as a way for the school to get him out of there pending the arrival of a new coach who will want to bring in his own handpicked assistant coaches anyway. That will cue the official firing of McQueary without subjecting the university to legal wrangling.</p>
<p>The only thing I keep thinking is that Paterno could have easily been a “deep throat” type of source for any number of major news outlets with one well placed call. Even if he wanted to stay out of it.</p>