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The Penn State e-mails - washingtonismoney - 06-30-2012

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/19449273

Heartbreaking. It's hard to see how anyone survives this.

Just curious. Does your warranted contempt for "these swine" - Redrum - 06-30-2012

mitigate the hellfire and brimstone you loaded on grad assistant McQueary for not going to the cops when he first saw the shower incident?  It seems to me that these swine used their position and power to convince McQueary that appropriate action would be taken,  then killed the whole plan in secret.  Also note that they had reportedly begun their internal cover-up routine in another incident  three years before McQueary trusted them. 

The watertight doors aren't going to hold for Penn St.  now.  There is no damage control short of a Soviet style purge.  Not fun for anyone.

Re: The Penn State e-mails - Farm93 - 06-30-2012

(06-30-2012, 12:06 PM)garvin link Wrote:Remind me again -- why did Joe Paterno get fired and these swine didn't?
I have been in that camp from the beginning.  Blame Joe if you must, but some others with actual AD and University responsibility for security and safety really dropped the ball.  Oh well, I guess for the victims these e-mails will be helpful as it will help them realize that there was literally nothing they could have done to stop the monster AND it should give them access to financial compensation from Penn State University.

However, if these reports are correct there is a bit more that falls to Joe too.  Seems as though after the 2001 incident these powers were closer to doing the right thing and informing all of the appropriate entities in the State, but after talking with Joe they changed their strategy to the let's just tell Sandusky to keep the kids away from here program.  Never going to know what Joe said, but seems as though after a night to think about it and a conversation with Joe the plan changed.


Re: The Penn State e-mails - akiddoc - 06-30-2012

I think it is pretty difficult to assign more blame to one or another of these men. All four had moral obligations to report what they knew.

What I can't comprehend is what two top administrators at a large public university thought they were doing by covering up. My father was president of 2 universities and he can't comprehend it either.

Re: The Penn State e-mails - oman - 06-30-2012

(06-30-2012, 02:25 PM)garvin link Wrote:Paterno, by contrast, got a second-hand report a day or two after the incident. There was no right-this-second urgency to the situation. You can argue he should have done better, but his response was more far more appropriate than that of McQueary.

Second hand or no, this is the type of thing that is absolutlely all-hands-on-deck-nobody-sleeps-until-I-get-a-full-report-on-my-desk situation.  Period.  That included the head coach and his bosses.

If this was some peripheral position -- Field House Manager, VP of Facilities, okay.  But the head coach needs to deputize someone to follow up for him if he is not going to do so and to have that person call him and give him a full report immediately.

The fact that everyone is going to lose their shirts is precisely why Paterno should have been fired, not an argument against his firing.  If he had walked the walk of an ethical leader this would not have happened. 

If indeed someone above you in the chain of command tells you he is handling it, that is fine, but you still have a duty to follow up on something like this and make sure it is handled.

Paterno should have asked two questions when he was told of the incident, second hand or no -- why should this guy not be removed from all things Penn State and why should we not take it to the police?  And he should have bugged his minions or his superiors until he got a convincing answer to the questions.

Re: The Penn State e-mails - yvonne - 06-30-2012

Am I missing something? Seriously.

Quote:"After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe [Paterno] yesterday," CNN quoted Curley from an obtained e-mail, "I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps. I am having trouble with going to everyone, but the person involved."

That hardly sounds exculpatory toward Paterno.

Re: The Penn State e-mails - socalstanfan1 - 07-01-2012

The fact that Paterno was the only one fired when, in fact, multiple-firings are deserved, is hardly an argument that Paterno shouldn't have lost his job, or does not bear his share of responsibility for Sandusky's continued access to Penn State.  Given that Paterno was a near deity on campus only heightens his responsibility, in my mind. 

To say anyone involved in this situation, from McQueary on up, has greater or lesser responsibility than someone else is splitting hairs:  McQueary obviously had a responsibility to stop the assault he witnessed.  And, at this point, he should lose his job.  But that fact does not mitigate the responsibility of the other parties, including Paterno.  To say that on the first response to the situation going public Paterno got the shaft, doesn't change the fact that he frankly deserved to be fired.  He simply should have had a lot more company than he had.

Re: The Penn State e-mails - oman - 07-01-2012

(07-01-2012, 04:17 AM)garvin link Wrote:The guy who witnessed but did not intervene in the attack was not fired, even though he did not call the police. The guys who ran the university and had ultimate personnel responsibility were not fired, even though they did not call the police. The only person fired for not calling the police was Joe Paterno, a football coach they wanted to get of anyway. If this does not strike you as a conveniently selective attribution of responsibility, I don't know what to say.

I don't think an incident of this magnitude in any organization would ever result in non-selective attribution of responsiblity.  This is how the world works.  This is human nature.  And selective attibution of responsibility is often appropriate when you are dealing with persons who bear different levels of responsiblity.

I agree that with the limited amount of information we know, a whole lot of heads should have rolled.

Given the information we know, are you saying that Paterno should not have been fired?  Even if civil justice for the others is slow in coming?

If you agree that a responsible organization may have determined that firing him was part of an appropriate response to this affair, we might simply be talking around each other.

[FYI, I don't know if I would have fired anyone for "not calling the police directly".  I think McQuary should have clearly stopped the incident, taken responsibility and gotten the boy to a safe place.  I don't have an issue with someone in an organization telling someone that "the police should be brought into this matter, and if you want someone from HR or legal to accompany me while I report it, you have some time to get someone over here -- I am leaving in a few minutes".  I don't begrude anyone some shock at an incident like this, or if they are thinking more clearly, that their actions may have such an extremely big impact on an organization that it would warrant their leaders getting a "heads up".]

Re: The Penn State e-mails - Leftcoast - 07-01-2012

A ten year "heads-up" seems a tad excessive .....

Re: The Penn State e-mails - oman - 07-01-2012

(07-01-2012, 08:35 AM)Leftcoast link Wrote:A ten year "heads-up" seems a tad excessive .....

Maybe they had trouble coordinating Meetings in Outlook.Â