Unforgivable

The news from the Penn State football program is as horrible a story as we have heard in college athletics, and that is truly saying something. For a scandal to stand out against the NCAA’s miasma of academic, financial, and sex scandals, it must be truly beyond the pale, and the news handed down in State College, Pa., on Saturday truly was. Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant coach who had maintained offices at the university even after retiring in 1999, was indicted on 40 counts of criminal sexual abuse of eight minors, all under the age of 16, at least one as young as eight. He had been investigated in 1999, the year he — perhaps not coincidentally — decided to leave coaching, but no charges were filed against him at that time. An investigation only began in earnest in 2009, leading to his indictment Saturday.

That would be awful, truly awful. But it would not, perhaps, have reflected poorly on Penn State; had they not known about Sandusky’s actions, or better, had they known and done something, the sins would be his and his alone.

If.

But Penn State did know about the allegations against Sandusky. Indeed, one of the acts of abuse took place in 2002, in the Penn State locker room, and was witnessed by a graduate assistant:

At approximately 9:30 p.m. on March 1, 2002, a Penn State graduate assistant entered what should have been an empty football locker room. He was surprised to hear the showers running and noises he thought sounded like sexual activity, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury “finding of fact” released Saturday.

When he looked in the shower he saw what he estimated to be a 10-year-old boy, hands pressed up against the wall, “being subjected to anal intercourse,” by Jerry Sandusky, then 58 and Penn State’s former defensive coordinator. The grad assistant said both the boy and the coach saw him before he fled to his office where, distraught and stunned, the grad assistant telephoned his father, who instructed his son to flee the building.

The next day, a Saturday, the grad assistant went to the home of head coach Joe Paterno and told him what he had seen. The day after that, Paterno called Penn State athletic director Tim Curley to his home to report that the grad assistant had told him he had witnessed “Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”

A week-and-a-half later, according to the grand jury report, the grad assistant was called to a meeting with Curley and Gary Schultz, the school’s senior vice president for finance and business, where he retold his story.

This would be beyond disturbing news, but the actions that Curley and Schultz (and, probably, Paterno) were to take were clear. Penn State is a school, and officials at schools are mandated reporters. They have to report incidents of possible child abuse to the appropriate authorities.

They did not.

Curley did not notify university police or have the graduate assistant further questioned involving the incident. No other legal or university entity investigated the case.

Merely alerting police would’ve been significant since they investigated Sandusky in 1998 for “incidents with children in football building showers.” Curley never asked for a background check on Sandusky.

Curley instead took it upon himself to inform the director of “Second Mile” about the charge, although it didn’t concern potential sodomy of a minor.

Curley told the grand jury he was merely told that Sandusky was “horsing around” with the boy. The grand jury did not find that credible in part because Schultz said he had gotten the impression “Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed the young boys’ genitals while wrestling around.” Both Curley and Schultz are charged with perjury for claiming the grad assistant didn’t inform them of “sexual activity.”

Curley later met with Sandusky and told him he was no longer allowed to bring children onto the Penn State campus. He forwarded the report on to university president Graham Spanier, who approved of Sandusky’s ban from bringing children onto campus and himself never reported the incident to police.

And so Jerry Sandusky was truly punished. He couldn’t rape kids on Penn State’s campus any more. He’d have to rape them somewhere else.

Sandusky was not reported to authorities. He himself was not banned from campus. The school didn’t even have the decency to try to find the identity of the child.

You can’t tell me that Curley and Schmidt were clueless, either. Even the cover story — that Sandusky was showering nude with a 10-year-old, alone, and that they were “horsing around” — rings so many alarm bells that it’s sickening. That alone would warrant an investigation. That alone would warrant serious questions. That alone would be wandering up to the line of criminality, if not crossing it clearly. It certainly would cause anyone who cared more about kids than their program’s reputation to call the police and suggest that they look into the matter.

But Curley and Schmidt actively swept the incident under the rug. And for that, and for lying to a grand jury, they’ve ended up indicted on two felonies each. Joe Paterno, the eternally-tenured coach of the Nittany Lions, managed to avoid criminal prosecution, because he at least reported the incident to Curley. But given that Curley works for Paterno as much as Paterno works for Curley, it’s hard to say that Paterno walks away from the incident with his reputation intact. Nothing prevented him from calling the cops himself.

No, Curley, Schmidt, and Paterno all chose to put the Penn State football program above abused kids, to let things die quietly — and to let Sandusky keep abusing kids — in order to keep things out of the media.

And the school is still trying to pretend that it didn’t fail on a massive scale. Even with two of his subordinates indicted, and amid allegations of a child rape occurring on his campus, Penn State University President Graham Spanier issued a statement that truly defies any standard of decency. I’m reprinting it in its entirety, because it must be read in full for its callousness to be understood:

The allegations about a former coach are troubling, and it is appropriate that they be investigated thoroughly. Protecting children requires the utmost vigilance.

With regard to the other presentments, I wish to say that Tim Curley and Gary Schultz have my unconditional support. I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years. I have complete confidence in how they have handled the allegations about a former University employee.

Tim Curley and Gary Schultz operate at the highest levels of honesty, integrity and compassion. I am confident the record will show that these charges are groundless and that they conducted themselves professionally and appropriately.

This is sickening. First, note what Spanier doesn’t express: any shred of concern for Sandusky’s victims. Second, Spanier somehow manages to claim that Curley and Schultz possess “the highest levels of honesty, integrity, and compassion.” But by their own admission, they chose not to report what was at best a very troubling, credible, and serious criminal allegation to authorities, as they were required to do by law. That’s not showing integrity. They gave conflicting statements to the grand jury. That’s not honesty. And compassion? They never asked the boy’s name.

They had no compassion for him. They didn’t care whether he was raped. Didn’t care whether he lived or died, frankly. They just covered their own asses, and Sandusky’s to boot.

Even if the facts are exactly as Curley and Schultz claim, they should be fired for their incredible lack of judgment. Paterno likely deserves to go as well — an ignominious end, to be sure, but he made his choice no less than the others. As for Spanier, well, any school official who could be so cavalier about allegations of criminal activity on his own campus is ipso facto unfit to lead. He should be dismissed immediately, and frankly, given his statement, I believe investigators should look into what he knew about this incident, and when he knew it.

The saddest part of the story is that it isn’t all that surprising. The alleged crimes of Sandusky were monstrous, to be sure. But they are only different by degree from the star athlete who rapes someone, only to have the school administration pressure her to keep things quiet, to not make waves, to not wreck the boy’s life. Faced with a horrific and undeniable act of sexual abuse by a man who had been accused of similar behavior in the past, the Penn State administration and coaches chose to obfuscate, to deny, and to ultimately short-circuit any criminal investigation. It makes me wonder how many other times they’ve covered up malfeasance, and how many more victims’ scars went ignored.

 

This entry posted in Rape, intimate violence, & related issues, Sports. Bookmark the permalink. 

41 Responses to Unforgivable

  1. 1
    FeministWhore says:

    Jeezum creezum.

    “The state Attorney General’s Office on Saturday charged Sandusky, 67, with 40 sex crimes involving boys from 1994 to 2005, all of whom he met through the Second Mile Foundation, which he founded in 1977.”

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/133311418.html

  2. 2
    Firinel says:

    What I find more offensive than Spanier’s cavalier attitude now, is that he is ALSO as culpable as Curley, Schultz, and Paterno in not reporting the incident. Considering that he approved of Sandusky’s ban from bringing children onto campus, if he was ignorant of the actual witnesses incident, it was only through deliberate will. What kind of president, when faced with approving that sort of thing, DOESN’T ask why such a ban would be necessary!?

    I don’t know enough about the legal system to know what sort of charges exist, but I feel that there ought to be something that they could be charged with, as their negligence makes them into accomplices in Sandusky’s offenses.

  3. 3
    Jeff Fecke says:

    @Firinel – There is some speculation that Spanier is defending Curley and Schultz in order to protect himself from potential legal action.

  4. 4
    mythago says:

    Jeff @3: Probably, but it won’t work.

  5. 5
    CaitieCat says:

    That’s horrendous. Did they take a Catholic Church seminar on “How to Cope With ‘Sexual Abuse of Minors’ Allegations”?

  6. 6
    Robert says:

    As Dennis Miller said, “whenever I go to confession I feel the urge to tell the priest, ‘you first’.”

    This is the worst story I have ever read in college athletics. Jesus, at least the rape scandals at most schools involve adults.

  7. 7
    james says:

    I don’t know about Paterno. If people have second hand knowledge of a case and it is being escalated up the hierarchy they’re not expected to make a report based on hearsay themselves, there’d be lots of partial and duplicate reporting if that was the case. Being a director, Spanier may also not have been a mandated reporter either.

  8. 8
    mythago says:

    “Okay, I kept my mouth shut about the rape of a 10-year-old. But it wasn’t like I was a mandatory reporter!” Right, james. You keep on spinning.

  9. 9
    Robert says:

    I don’t know who is a mandatory reporter, but I do know that if I found my coach buggering a 10-year old in the shower, I would not be calling my dad. I’d be calling the damn police.

  10. 10
    CaitieCat says:

    Frankly, having been the kid in this scenario once, I’d be calling the police and a hearse, the one for me to surrender to, the other for the late molester.

  11. 11
    Cross Cultural Comparisons says:

    I’ve been doing some research and it seems this disgusting pathology of pedophilia has been a cross cultural phenomena for thousands of years. I wonder if there is a regressive gene for it, and if so, what can be done about it. There was a study wherein scientists subjected pedophiles to a drugs that affected certain areas of their brains and they reported feeling no desire to molest kids during that time. When they took them off the drug, they reported a return of the desire. Does anyone else here remember reading about that?

  12. Robert:

    I don’t know who is a mandatory reporter, but I do know that if I found my coach buggering a 10-year old in the shower, I would not be calling my dad. I’d be calling the damn police.

    I can sort of understand a young graduate student, who might be 23 or 24 years old being freaked out and calling his parents out of reflex. I remember the first time I heard the man who lived downstairs from me–this was a long time ago–beating up the woman he lived with. I was so shocked and, frankly, panicked that what should have been obvious–call 911–was not. What astonishes me is that the father’s advice was not call the police, but rather flee the building. The level of denial flowing through this whole story is beyond astonishing, and all I keep thinking about is that kid, and does anyone who knows him know that Sandusky has been arrested, or even that the kid was one of Sandusky’s victims. It is so easy in a situation like this to focus on the perpetrator to the exclusion of the victim–and I am not accusing anyone on this thread of doing that–just making an observation.

  13. 13
    mythago says:

    My take on that was that the father was concerned that Sandusky would threaten or harm the student to keep him from telling anyone.

  14. 14
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    From everything I’ve heard, sports fans can be remarkably nasty. I’ve been wondering if anything (like being driven away from the university) happened to the graduate assistant.

  15. 15
    Robert says:

    Tough shit. Child rape trumps “I’m worried about my fellowship.”

    I suppose it’s easy for me to say that, and I do recognize the force of your argument, Richard & Mythago. But shock and panic diminish. Not calling the cops the next day, or the next week, or the next month, is acceding to evil. It seems like everyone involved chose the easy path instead of standing for the right.

    I wonder if the multiplicity of people who knew contributed to the inaction. I remember reading about studies showing that people in a group who saw something terrible happening were much less likely to intervene than when it was just one person who saw it; everyone thinks “someone else will take the heat”.

    But I am so thoroughly sickened by this story that I cannot think objectively about it, so please take my comments as a vent rather than as a sober reflective analysis.

  16. 16
    mythago says:

    Robert @15: I agree with you completely. I’m just guessing at why the student’s father had that immediate reaction – not justifying it, or for that matter, anything else about this story.

  17. 17
    Robert says:

    I know, mythago. You may be a soulless immoral monster, but you’re not THAT much of a soulless immoral monster. ;)

  18. 18
    Aunt B. says:

    Nancy, it now seems like we know who the graduate student is–Mike McQueary–and what happened to him–he’s a senior assistant to Joe Paterno.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/sports/ncaafootball/in-penn-states-sex-abuse-case-a-focus-on-how-paterno-reacted.html?ref=sports

    I have to agree with Robert in that I understand why you’d run right then, but I don’t understand how you’d never try to follow up on it. I especially don’t understand how you turn around and take a job with the very organization you KNOW did nothing about the fact that you witnessed someone raping a child. And I don’t know how you ignore the fact that the person you saw raping a child still has access to children. And that the people you work for and with know it and do nothing.

  19. 19
    allburningup says:

    From that article that Aunt B. linked, it seems that according to prosecutors the same thing happened on several occasions–someone realized what was going on, told someone, and then nothing came of it.

    -There was an investigation in 1998 after a mother contacted campus police, but the DA chose not to prosecute, and the investigation by child welfare also came to nothing.
    -A janitor witnessed Sandusky assaulting a child in 2000, and told another employee as well as his supervisor. None of these three reported it to the authorities.
    -In 2002, of course, McQueary witnessed Sandusky assaulting a child and called his (McQueary’s) father, then told Paterno, who told Curley, who told Spanier. None of these people reported it to the authorities.

    Why did so many people fail like this?

  20. 20
    mythago says:

    Robert, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. *sniff*

  21. 21
    Robert says:

    Don’t let it get around. People will think I’m getting soft.

  22. 22
    RonF says:

    Every two years I have to re-take “Youth Protection Training” in the BSA. This is for adults, so the premise is that the person taking the training is at least 18 years old and is a registered BSA leader. If we catch someone in the act we are told NOT to assault the offender. We are to call the local Council’s emergency number (which we are all supposed to carry) and tell them, and they call the cops. We are to cooperate with the authorities when they arrive. The concept of “Well, we don’t assault them, but do we stop them?” is left vague, it’s a question of what you think you can safely do. Me, I’m bigger than most and I would very likely try to stop the assault. Someone who is 5′ 4″ happening upon a 6′ 4″ offender would likely and justifiably react differently.

    Chicago is a Big Ten town (Northwestern is in the Big Ten and there’s a whole lot of University of Illinois graduates around, also a member of the Big Ten). This has gotten a lot of coverage. Sports radio today (which I don’t usually listen to, but the Chicago Bears pulled off a big upset last night beating the Eagles) was talking about the issue of who knew what when and what did they do and was that appropriate? They kind of gave the grad ass a pass but question strongly why Joe Pa didn’t take further action when he duly reported the incident up the chain and didn’t see any arrest. The concept is that while on paper he reports to the Athletics Director, practically pretty much anything he says goes at Penn State, so he’d be bulletproof against any repercussions for bucking the command chain on an issue like this – and he knows it. They’re thinking that he might end up being allowed to resign after the season is over. Apparently he’s not legally liable since he did report the incident up his command chain in a timely fashion.

    I would say that if I personally witnessed an assault I’d follow procedure. But if a day or two went by and there was no arrest I’d be asking a lot of questions quickly and would eventually go to the cops. I’m loyal to the BSA for sure, but the BSA – and Penn State – is a vehicle to serve children. If it comes to a point where I have to choose between serving the institution or serving a kid I know where my primary loyalty belongs. I’d rather take the uniform off than be ashamed to put it on.

  23. 23
    Simple Truth says:

    Any organization that wants you to call them BEFORE you call the cops when you see an assault in progress has its priorities backwards. After all, assault can turn into homicide under the wrong circumstances. Wouldn’t you want the cops there immediately to try and stop that sort of thing? Second call, yes. First call, no.

    On the original post – If you’re a scared grad student…wait, how old are you? And calling your dad who tells you to run away? I thought college was supposed to prepare you for the real world. /snark

  24. 24
    Susan says:

    What is it about raping children that arouses all these protective instincts – protective of the perp I mean – in the adults standing around??? In organizations with supposedly high ideals??? Unbelievable.

    In the Catholic situation, do we really think that if bishops witnessed or knew about priests routinely committing armed robbery or second degree murder they’d say, “oh well, priests are just people like everyone else” and then cover it up? (Perhaps I don’t want to meditate too long on this question….) What about the sports or boy scouts situation? Do we tolerate felony assault and battery in our coaches or our boy scout leaders? They routinely stick up gas stations with loaded guns? (God I hope not.) What is it about this particular felony – an especially disgusting crime, in my book, involving the violation of the helpless and the innocent, at least the 7-11 store clerk who’s the victim of armed robbery is an adult – that makes all this OK in someone’s mind???

    I’m simply stonkered by this.

    And yes, thanks Simple Truth, RonF, the “call the organization first” mentality is part of what got the Catholic Church in so much trouble. Let the Boy Scouts beware!!

    When you witness a felony in progress you call 911. How hard can it be to grasp this? As soon as you can dial the phone. Every child knows this or should know. You shouldn’t have to be a “mandated reporter.” Being a human being should be enough.

    Then maybe you call the perp’s boss. Not the other way round.

  25. 25
    Susan says:

    Institutions do an awful job of policing themselves.

    That has been true of the Boy Scouts, which has paid out tens of million of dollars in response to lawsuits by former scouts molested by adults who continued to work in the organization despite complaints or questions about their behavior.

    Courtesy of the NY Times. (Unhappily I don’t know how to make a link.)

    Beware, Boy Scouts. Take a lesson from the late, great Catholic Church. Unhappily, being a scoutmaster (like being a priest) can attract the wrong sort of person, and one doubts that calling the organization when a scoutmaster is caught in the act is the most sensible thing to do. (Yikes! Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse!)

    Another juicy quote, this time the SF Chronicle:

    Penn State has never been an “outlaw program.” It’s what every school aspires to become. Think about that. Every school aspires to be the kind of place where football is so valuable that children can become collateral damage.

    Well, one hopes that most football programs have more exalted aspirations.

  26. 26
    RonF says:

    Ah, no, quite right Simple Truth and Susan, I was thinking about two things at once – what you do if you see an assault and what you do if you find out about it afterwards. Yes, absolutely, if you see an assault occurring at that instant you should call the police. It’s when you find out about the assault after the fact you call the BSA first (your local Council) and they call the cops. This also extends to seeing evidence of child abuse that did not occur in Scouting at all, which can come up when a kid is on a campout and flinches whenever you walk up to him unexpectedly or has unexplained bruises when he takes his shirt off because it’s hot or he’s going swimming.

    The BSA also recognizes that their rules are subject to State and local law. If the State requires that you call them directly when a kid tells you that Mom whacks him around or if you found out that Assistant Scoutmaster Janice pulled his bathing suit off of him, then that’s what you do.

  27. 27
    RonF says:

    Times have changed in the BSA on that one, and I’ve seen them. There’s a much greater emphasis on Youth Protection Training – now if you haven’t taken it within 2 years the BSA’s computer system will reject your registration (which has to be renewed every year). Every registered adult has to take it, not just those in direct contact with youth, which is also a change. It is absolutely drilled into people that an adult is never left alone with a child out of sight.

    They also stopped depending solely on the chartering institutions to run background checks on adult leaders. Now every adult has a national background check run on them by a 3rd party contractor when they first register and if they change positions, such as when someone changes from being a Cubmaster to being a Scoutmaster. Any record of child abuse or sex offense will get you bounced at the National level with no appeal. Drug convictions or DUI’s are left to the local Council’s discretion (a 40-year-old Dad is not going to be barred from being an SM if he got pinched for smoking a joint when he was in college). Other non-criminal complaints can get you dropped as well – a local Scouter who I personally thought very highly of got his registration pulled because of a couple of instances where he simply got too familiar with kids for someone’s comfort. The last instance was when he saw a couple of kids in a restaurant that he was eating in as well and texted them to come on over to his table. The mother of one of them found out and complained to Council.

    Finally, National has been put on notice by both the national bodies that sponsor units (the Mormons, the Lutherans, the Catholics, the VFW and American Legion, etc.) and outraged rank and file Scouters that they need to clean up their act. The Scoutmasters and Den Leaders out here are not a bunch of minions – we’re here for the kids and we don’t appreciate a bunch of people in Irving, Texas who never see the inside of a tent playing games with something we value very highly. They work for us, we don’t work for them.

    Parents have to do their part as well – and they’re told that and what that part is in a booklet glued into the front of every Boy Scout and Cub Scout Handbook that the parents have to sign off that they’ve read before the kids get their first rank.

    Susan: substituting left and right angle brackets for left and right square brackets:

    [a href=”http://www.thisisanexample.com/just-cut-and-paste/the_entire_URL_here.html”]The text you want to show as the link[/a]

  28. 28
    Susan says:

    @RonF

    If we catch someone in the act we are told NOT to assault the offender. We are to call the local Council’s emergency number (which we are all supposed to carry) and tell them…

    My bad, RonF, I thought you were talking about, you know, catching someone in the act.

    Now I learn from your last that,

    if you see an assault occurring at that instant you should call the police

    There’s a distinction between “catching someone in the act” and “seeing an assault occurring at that instant”? Am I supposed to call the police or the BSA bureaucrats? Why am I worried about this?

    Well, you have me confused.

    Also this:

    Parents have to do their part as well – and they’re told that and what that part is in a booklet glued into the front of every Boy Scout and Cub Scout Handbook that the parents have to sign off that they’ve read before the kids get their first rank.

    Obviously I haven’t read the booklet, but it troubles me that “parents have to do their part” to be sure that scoutmasters don’t rape their kids, which leads into the old old Roman Catholic argument that really it’s the parents’ fault because…because…they didn’t catch the bad guy priest. They’re bad parents, get it? (huh?)

    xxxx

    (Susan: substituting left and right angle brackets for left and right square brackets:

    [a href=”http://www.thisisanexample.com/just-cut-and-paste/the_entire_URL_here.html”]The text you want to show as the link[/a])

    Huh? This is too hard for me, if there’s some substituting and angles and brackets here maybe you can do it for me? Does this answer the question about the difference between catching someone in the act and seeing an assault occurring at that instant? HELP)

  29. 29
    Simple Truth says:

    @RonF: Thanks for the clarification. It’s still a little weird to me not to call the cops immediately if someone is telling you that they were assaulted/raped/whatever, but I’ve seen that policy in place in other private institutions so I know it’s not unusual.

  30. 30
    RonF says:

    Tech help:

    Say I want to put Amp’s home page for this blog up as a link in a posting here and have the underlined or differently colored text that shows as the link say “Amp’s blog.”. The URL of Amp’s home page for the blog is https://www.amptoons.com/blog. Note that even if the “http://” doesn’t show up in the URL window of your browser, you have to add it when you create the link. That would look like:

    [a href=”https://www.amptoons.com/blog”]Amp’s blog[/a]

    Now, what’s this about angle brackets vs. square brackets? In it’s simplest form, HTML is set off from ordinary text by surrounding it with angle brackets. The left angle bracket is what you get when you hold down the shift key and hit a comma and the right angle bracket is what you get when you hold down the shift key and strike the period. If I write the above example with angle brackets instead of square brackets – “[” and “]” – the blog software will interpret that as HTML (which, after all, is what you want it to do) and you won’t see the example, you’ll see the actual link, like this:

    Amp’s blog

    So when you type out the example above, wherever you see a left square bracket don’t actually type the left square bracket, hold down the shift key and strike the comma key, and where you see the right square bracket don’t type it, hold down the shift key and strike the period key instead. Mind you, you’ll see it as ordinary text when you write it out in your posting with angle brackets instead of square brackets, but when you save the post and then read the posting you’ll see a link instead.

    There’s probably a way for me to actually write out the example text with angle brackets and tell the blog software “Hey, this is an example, don’t interpret it as an actual HTML link, we want people to see the angle brackets and text”, but I don’t know how to do that off the top of my head.

  31. 32
    RonF says:

    Simple Truth, I’m told by the local Council that the Scout Executive has hotline numbers of the various government and social agencies involved in dealing with such things and can get the right people on the scene quickly. In the case of a Scouter being involved (and here we’re talking notification after the fact, not someone caught in the act) it would also allow Council to find out where that person was, suspend their membership and make sure that the leaders of the Pack or Troop or Crew or Ship are notified. If you are out on a campout or other outing you have to file notification with Council as to who’s going, where you are and what you’re doing and with a contact number. If this person is at that moment (or soon will be) in contact with youth someone on scene needs to know right away and they need to be separated from youth contact.

    The bottom line is that I know the people involved. I’m calling someone who lives within a few miles of me that I’ve worked with on various issues, someone I know on sight, not someone in Irving, Texas in National Council. I trust that they’ll do the right thing. However, let me assure you that in such a case trust would be something I’d verify.

    Joe Pa’s problem (the one that he’s resigning over) is that he lost track of the difference between the authority to get something done with the responsibility to see that something got done. He passed a report up to Penn State’s management because they were designated by Penn State with the authority to get something done. That’s proper and that’s their job. You can legitimately do that. But the responsibility to ensure that something actually did GET done is NOT something you can delegate – once aware of something like this you become responsible for seeing that authority does their job, and seeing that someone else does something if said authority falls down on the job.

  32. 33
    Susan says:

    Thanks for the technical help, you guys are the best!

    The bottom line is that I know the people involved. I’m calling someone who lives within a few miles of me that I’ve worked with on various issues, someone I know on sight, not someone in Irving, Texas in National Council. I trust that they’ll do the right thing. However, let me assure you that in such a case trust would be something I’d verify.

    Ron I hope this works out for the scouts. Apparently in the past, according to the NYT, it hasn’t always. Go visit New York Times Perhaps what you’re describing is a revised procedure.

    I did it! I did it! Made a link!!

    It’s just that so often it hasn’t worked out, this “I know who I’m dealing with” thing. Keeping it internal. It hasn’t worked out for a lot of very different organizations, now, most recently, a football team. (Youth program, athletic program, international church, school system and so forth.) Organizations want to protect their own, as we’ve seen way too much.

    Back in the day a lot of red herrings got dragged across this trail. It was because Catholic priests are supposed to be celibate, let them marry and the problem is solved. Except that, when did the Penn State football program start requiring celibacy? Or it’s because of all this God stuff and how they manipulate people with guilt. Except when it isn’t. And so forth. The one common thread, though, seems to be and enclosed internal bureaucracy and a lack of accountability to the larger community.

    It’s a sad business, there are some very sick people out there, and we probably can’t ever bring the rate to zero, but we can try.

  33. 34
    Firinel says:

    It was because Catholic priests are supposed to be celibate, let them marry and the problem is solved.

    Where was this idea proposed? It seems like it’s unfamiliar with the pathology of sex crimes in that it appears to equate a completely natural, sane, sexual desire with paedophilia, or any sex crime, which honestly, just isn’t accurate or appropriate. Sex crimes usually have very little resemblance to natural sexual desire, and are much much more about sexualising power dynamics (and in the case of paedophilia, innocence).

  34. 35
    Robert says:

    Firinel –

    It isn’t that letting priests marry would radically change the behavior of the existing priesthood. It’s that “people who want to get married” and “people who want (or accept) a life of celibacy” are two different populations, and (rightly or wrongly – my money is on the former) the theory is that the former group is going to have a lower incidence of pedophilia. Drawing the priesthood from people who, for lack of a better word, are in the group of sexual “normals” would mitigate the selection bias problem that currently exists. I believe it was Heinlein who said that celibacy was just another sexual perversion, and a weird one at that.

    There’s also a thought (with again, imho, some validity) that some of the sexual abuse comes from pent-up sexual desires exploding in unacceptable and abusive ways, and that the safety valve of allowing ordinary sexual intercourse would eliminate some portion of the problem.

  35. 36
    RonF says:

    Susan, that NYT article is referencing issues that happened some time ago and helped spur the changes that the BSA has put in place.

    And now Joe Pa is out, and the University president and others besides. Joe Pa isn’t facing charges, but others are. The University Trustees did what was needed. Some people are calling for Penn State to be denied further play this season, or from going to a bowl game (they’re 8-1, so a bowl game invitation is otherwise a lock). I oppose that – the players and a great many coaches had nothing to do with this. People will say “but that’s what they do for recruiting violations and this is worse than that”. True, but the recruiting violations are what helped lead to the record that enabled the school to win games, etc., so it’s logical that the school be denied benefiting from it’s wrongdoing. This kind of situation has nothing to do with that, though.

    It’s amazing how things like this can lie around for years without any public awareness and then pop up and destroy people. I’ll be that Joe Pa didn’t give this 2 seconds thought for years, and now it’s cost him his job, put disgrace on his heretofore stellar name and will end up putting people in jail, very likely.

  36. 37
    mythago says:

    I thought part of the issue with the Catholic priesthood was also that, for a very long time (if not forever), it was a place to run away to if you felt troubled about your sexuality. You’d be celibate as a priest, see, so everything would be perfectly OK.

  37. 38
    Susan says:

    I thought part of the issue with the Catholic priesthood was also that, for a very long time (if not forever), it was a place to run away to if you felt troubled about your sexuality. You’d be celibate as a priest, see, so everything would be perfectly OK.

    Seems a sensible analysis, but there’s little or no data on it, for obvious reasons. What young man, upon checking into seminary, says in so many words, “I’m troubled about my sexuality and that’s why I’m here”? It’s not the kind of thing people admit.

    You will read, if you read about this thing, that there is “no more” or “more” or “less” sexual abuse of children by RC priests than in the general population. All such statements are blowing smoke, because we have no idea how much sexual molestation goes on in the general population, and we aren’t likely to have numbers on this any time soon.

    But back to Penn State, and making an attempt to re-focus this discussion, the really vile thing here, as in the Catholic Church, is not the sexual abuse of children, vile as that is. That kind of behavior, sadly, will probably always be with us.

    The really vile thing, and the thing that took Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno down, and which should have but didn’t put a number of Catholic bishops in jail, is authorities who know or should know about the abuse but who protect the perverts who commit it. Sometimes, as here, for years.

    I actually knew such a person myself, a person in authority, under circumstances which need not detain us here. This individual in my estimation was such a piece of slime that I wanted to wash my hands every time I had a phone conversation with him. And he himself never touched a child. But he was worse.

  38. 39
    RonF says:

    Susan:

    It’s just that so often it hasn’t worked out, this “I know who I’m dealing with” thing. Keeping it internal.

    “I know who I’m dealing with” != “keeping it internal”.

    Obviously I haven’t read the booklet, but it troubles me that “parents have to do their part” to be sure that scoutmasters don’t rape their kids, which leads into the old old Roman Catholic argument that really it’s the parents’ fault because…because…they didn’t catch the bad guy priest. They’re bad parents, get it? (huh?).

    Not at all. Here are some of the things covered:

    The first part is for the parent to review on their own. What’s child abuse? Everyone thinks sexual, but there’s mental, emotional and physical but non-sexual abuse as well. And it’s committed by lots of different people, including your child’s peers. And including relatives and even parents.

    What are the signs to look for that may indicated that your child has been abused. These are mostly behavioral and emotional changes.

    How can you discipline your child without abusing him? (I say he because the majority of children in the BSA’s programs are male.) What techniques can you apply to yourself to keep you from lashing out and abusing your child?

    How do you talk to your child about abuse? What do you do if your child tells you that he’s been abused?

    The next section is to be reviewed with your child. What should your child know? It gives the “Child’s Bill of Rights”, the “Three R’s” of youth protection, rules on use of on-line services and social networks. It warns him that ANYONE can be an abuser, even someone they normally would trust implicitly.

    It closes with a couple of “first person” stories of young men who were abused by people they trusted. The emphasis in the stories is how they were drawn into the situation in which the abuse occurred, how the abuser tried to get them to conceal the abuse after it occurred and what they did to overcome that and report it.

    Asking parents to read this kind of thing, share it with their kids and keep an eye on both the child and the leaders is not “blaming the parents”. Your child is your child, not someone else’s. You can and do delegate the authority to instruct and work with and protect your child to others – you do so everytime you send your child to school or soccer practice or Scout meetings. But you cannot delegate the responsibility. That remains with you. Your responsibility is to do what you can. What you can do when your child is 12 years old and playing for the local basketball team is different than when your child is 19 and playing on a college lacrosse team 400 miles away. But it’s still your responsibility to do what you can.

    It seems to me that this is what we see was neglected all along the line in this mess at Penn State. That graduate assistant was, what, 25 when this happened? That’s supposed to be a full-grown person. But instead of stepping in and doing something right there and then he runs off and calls his father? He and Joe Pa and others passed the report up the line and then washed their hands of the matter. They may have fulfilled their authority, but they abandoned their responsibility.

  39. 41
    Cross Cultural Comparisons says:

    The thing about celibacy being abnormal and people who are drawn to celibate vocations being more likely to molest, I’d like to see some stats on that.

    I’ll say this, I think being sexually isolated for very long periods of time may give rise to abnormal forms of sexual expression that can be kept private, and that is the appeal.

    If publicly you are known as being celibate, and you are given much respect for it and have an entire community that looks up to you for guidance, then there is social and psychological pressure on you not to let them down. So you express your sexuality in a hidden way amongst those who agree to keep it hidden, or who are intimidated into doing so, rather than coming out and saying, “hey look, I want to have a normal sex life, openly, but I still want to continue in my capacity as priest”