The Penn State scandal is absolutely disturbing and saddening. According to ESPN, Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State football defensive coordinator, was arrested for 40 counts of molesting eight young boys.
Reports go back to 1994 of him having inappropriate encounters with children as young as eight years old. This makes me sick. I hope it makes you just as upset too, because this type of behavior should be 100 percent non-tolerable.
Sandusky founded the Second Mile, a charity to help troubled youths, in 1977. I wonder what his motives were for founding that charity, especially after being arrested for countless children abuse charges. Some charges involved children associated with the Second Mile program. Talk about letting a fox guard the hen house. Can you be any more evil than taking advantage of helpless children that were already “troubled?”
I cannot believe this had not been stopped years ago. The major point I am trying to make is why did no one take any action? This scandal is disgusting. This is what happens when people just sit on the sidelines.
Back in 2000, a janitor reported a shower incident involving Sandusky and a boy to his supervisor. Action was not taken to upper management. In 2002, graduate assistant Mike McQueary reported to head football coach Joe Paterno that he saw Sandusky having anal sex with a young boy in a locker room. McQueary also claimed to have told athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz of the incident. Curly testified in court saying they were not told of such an allegation. No action was taken. No law enforcement occurred until now, almost 10 years later. We are finally seeing some action taking place. Both Curley and Schultz were charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse.
It is so sad to think of everyone who knew what was happening and did not press for further action. I do give props to McQueary for doing his job and reporting to his supervisors. But there was not enough action taken by higher authorities to stop the reported child abuse. Now some head-honchos are going to pay for their lack of action. Well, I say good.
The board of trustees did the right thing on Nov. 9 by firing those who knew about the sexual encounters and did not take further action to prevent the abuse. If something this disturbing ever occurred on our campus, I would want the same action to happen here.
While it is questionable why McQueary remains on the coaching staff, as Joe Paterno and Penn State President Graham Spanier burned for deciding not to take action, the board of trustees did the right thing. Because McQueary was a graduate assistant at the time, I believe Penn State kept him to protect the future of the graduate assistant program offered by the athletic department. Any school, private or public, at any level, should never use a student as a scapegoat for the inability to make decisions, ethical or unethical.
There are too many injustices happening in this world with too many people too scared to take a stand for one another. What if that was your child, family member or friend being sexually assaulted? You would not let something this extreme happen to them. So why did this have to happen to those young children?
Scandals like this need to be stopped before it really is too late. If we have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the world, we had better do it. I hope every one of us on campus is brave enough to take a stand against someone’s misdoings and stand up for others who cannot stand up for themselves. We need to work as a team to make this world a better place for us and for future generations.
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal is full of people who sat on the sidelines and waited for someone else to make the right call. Hopefully the world can learn from their mistakes.