Word To The Wise – Institutionalized Rape at Penn State University: A Cautionary Tale

By E. Roberts Musser

As an alumnus of Penn State University, I was shocked and appalled by the child sex abuse scandal that has unfolded there in recent days.  However, I was not all that surprised.  When I attended Penn State in the years 1972-1973, only on campus for one year to obtain my Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics, there was an ugly rumor floating around Penn State even then involving sexual impropriety.

Flash forward to the last few days at Penn State University.  Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive football coordinator for 23 years, was arrested on charges of sexual molestation of children.  (Read full grand jury report at http://deadspin.com/penn-state-scandal/.)  His victims were allegedly eight young boys as young as 10 years old, supposedly molested over a fifteen year period attending The Second Mile, a youth camp that conducted activities on the Penn State and satellite campuses.  In a recent interview in the past few days, Sandusky admitted to showering with young boys and touching them, claiming it was innocent “horseplay”.

Not surprisingly, Sandusky created and was in charge of this camp for at-risk youth, which started out as a group foster home.  (Sandusky is married and has six adopted kids.)  The famous (and now infamous) Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was on the at-risk youth camp’s Honorary Board of Directors.  Ironically, the mission of The Second Mile was to “help children who need additional support and would benefit from positive human interaction“.

In 2009 a woman complained to officials at a local school district, where Sandusky worked with youth and recruited for The Second Mile, that he had sexually assaulted her son.  Officials banned him from school grounds and immediately contacted law enforcement.  This ultimately led to an investigation by state police, the attorney general’s office and the grand jury.

The Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett took the case on a referral from the Centre County district attorney in early 2009, while he was serving as attorney general.  People have criticized the excruciatingly slow pace of the resultant probe.  Only one state trooper was assigned to the case after the state took it over in 2009. Once Corbett became governor in 2011 and his former investigations supervisor in the attorney general’s office, Frank Noonan, became state police commissioner, seven more investigators were finally put on the case.

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary was called before a grand jury. He testified that he saw Sandusky sodomizing a boy in the shower on campus in 2002, reporting it to head football coach Joe Paterno.  Paterno notified the athletic director, Tim Curley, and a vice president of the university, Gary Schultz (part of Schultz’s job was to oversee the university police department), who in turn notified the president of the university, Graham Spanier.  Not one of these college officials reported the incident to law enforcement as required.  Sandusky was merely unenforceably banned from bringing boys into the Penn State football facility. It was business as usual, as if nothing had happened.  (Go ahead and continue to molest boys, just don’t do it on the Penn State campus!)

Curley and Schultz were charged with failing to report the incident to authorities. Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly has not ruled out charges against Spanier.  Paterno is not a target of a criminal investigation thus far, but the state police commissioner called his failure to contact law enforcement a lapse in “moral responsibility.”  There is a federal probe occurring as well, to see if the Clery Act was violated.  The Clery Act requires all colleges and universities to report crimes that occur on or near their campuses.

It also came to light that district attorney Ray Gricar tried and failed to prosecute Jerry Sandusky in 1998, after reports of sexual abuse emerged (showering with a boy on campus).  Gricar has been missing since 2005, and was declared legally dead in July.  He disappeared on April 15, six years ago, after telling his girlfriend he was going for a drive.  His body was never found. Only his abandoned car and his laptop were discovered, the computer tossed in a local river without its hard drive.

Sandusky inexplicably retired the very next year in 1999, at the premature age of 55 (retaining coach emeritus status and access to Penn State facilities).  Yet he was the heir apparent to take over from head football coach Joe Paterno.  Sandusky was openly talked about as the likely successor to JoePa, a term Joe Paterno was affectionately known as.  It certainly leaves the public wondering now what Joe Paterno and Penn State University officials knew about Sandusky, and when did they know it?

Many are speculating if there was a concerted effort to cover up the sex scandal as far back as 1998, to keep the school’s reputation intact, regardless of how many more potential child victims might be harmed.  One of the victims claims to have been assaulted in 2007 (oral sex), a full five years after Joe Paterno and company learned of the 2002 incident reported to them by McQueary.  It appears ten more victims of sexual abuse have come out of the woodwork to press charges against Sandusky, which will bring the total to eighteen thus far.  But how many were abused that will be too ashamed to say anything?

There are even current rumors swirling around that Sandusky pimped out young boys to wealthy donors.  Only time will tell if this is true or if any number of other things will come to light, as past victims of child abuse muster the courage to step forward. As for Joe Paterno, up until now his pristine image had withstood scratches from players’ misbehavior, most notably an outbreak four years ago (not to mention the incident I heard about in 1972-1973). Two players were arrested for an off-campus brawl. A starting running back was charged with the rape of a fellow student. And there were several more incidents in a three-day period involving underage drinking and fighting.

Besides the criminal charges, the fallout from the latest sex abuse debacle has been and will continue to be enormous.  The director of The Second Mile youth camp and its General Counsel have resigned.  Penn State University and many of the college officials directly or indirectly involved, including Paterno, are facing possible civil law suits in the millions of dollars.  Paterno just signed his interest in their jointly owned home over to his wife for $1.  Paterno has had his name stripped from the Big Ten trophy, and support has been withdrawn from consideration of “JoePa” for the Medal of Freedom.  McQueary has been put on paid administrative leave because of death threats.  Spanier and Paterno have been fired from Penn State University, despite “illustrious” careers of longstanding.

Joe Paterno, at age 84 years old, had been coaching a winning football team for 46 years.  He refused suggestions to retire as recently as 4 years ago, also turning down offers to coach professional football over the years.  He had it way too cushy at Penn State University as a college coach to even think of leaving for bigger and better things.  I can attest to the fact that State College, where Penn State is located, treated him much like a deity.  The entire town revolved around the Penn State football season.

What I find so distressing about the entire decadent mess is how little regulations matter, if the powers that be choose to cover up depraved immorality right under their very noses.  An institutional lack of integrity and culture of corruption can result in horrendous criminal activity that can have shocking repercussions.  This is true whether it is a sex abuse scandal at a major university or within a church; a lapse in regulatory authority in regard to an oil spill in the Gulf region; or fiscal abuses in the banking industry.

I have no doubt Penn State University has been covering up various sex scandals involving the football team/coaches over the years.  But college athletics is notorious for flagrantly ignoring rules and athletes infamous for being the BMOC (big men on campus) answerable to no one.  Those young boys who were victimized at Penn State were plied with gifts (including drugs) and cash in exchange for sexual favors.  If the child victim squealed at being mistreated, he was threatened with being sent home from a bowl game by Sandusky.  And this represents nothing but an extension of the corrupt culture of college athletics, where athletes are wooed onto teams with promises of gifts, perks and prostitutes.  Play along, or you don’t get chosen by the best schools to play ball.

By the same token, regulators who should have been paying attention to the oil companies drilling off the Gulf Coast, were instead watching pornography, and being plied with prostitutes paid by the very industry they were supposed to be regulating.  Did anything happen to these regulators who abysmally failed in their duties, as oil spilled into Gulf waters off the Florida and Louisiana coasts?  According to government officials in Congressional hearings, not a single thing was done to the crooked regulators in response.  No repercussions whatever.

Look at the banking industry as yet another case in point.  Deutsche Bank was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for insider trading and fraud.  Two months into the investigation, the lawyer for the SEC assigned to the investigation was given a well paying job at a foreign branch of Duetsche Bank.  Shortly thereafter, the investigation of Deutsche Bank was disingenuously closed by the SEC.  This distorted revolving door, between the SEC that is supposed to be regulating the financial industry and the banks themselves, is well known.

As one more example, a close and dear friend of mine, a staunch Catholic, was upset at the media for reporting on the priest-pedophilia scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church.  In her view, the church as an institution was more important than individual victims, and should never be maligned publicly.  I could never understand that narrow outlook.  So long as the institution is deemed more important than the people it is supposed to be serving, then corruption and rot seep into its very foundation.  The resultant stench of corruption will never be purged or disappear.

Citizens need to demand more of their officials, public or private, including some degree of moral integrity.  When there is a lapse, the punishment should be swift and sure, as a means of deterrence.  As long as those in power think they can cover up for each other and get away with it, institutional rape of the public will be the result.

Lesson to be learned:  Pay attention.  Report abuse to law enforcement when you see it.  Demand high standards of officials, and accept nothing less than complete honesty.  If regulations are to be effective, citizens must require adherence by everyone, especially officials in positions of power, to statutory standards.

Elaine Roberts Musser is an attorney who concentrates her efforts on elder law and aging issues, especially in regard to consumer affairs.  If you have a comment or particular question or topic you would like to see addressed in this column, please make your observations at the end of this article in the comment section.

Categories: