Taylor Phil is the author of the article Pity The Children. The author presents his views about the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, the former football coach of Pennsylvania State University, on child sex abuse as well as the arrest of Gary Schultz and Tim Curley (university officials) on charges of lying under oath.
The author also mentions that Joe Paterno (the iconic football coach) and Curley were culpable for ignoring reports about the crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky. They seemed to be more worried about the reputation of the Penn State than the wellbeing of the victims.
The Second Mile is a charitable organization started by Jerry Sandusky (the former Penn State assistant coach) in 1977. The charitable organization was started to offer shelter for children in dire need of help. It is worthy to note that the organization derives its name from a Bible passage. However, the nation was stunned last week to learn about the sexual abuse charges leveled against Sandusky.
It was alleged that the former assistant coach of Penn State football team had sexually assaulted about eight boys for a period of 15 years. Many people agreed that if the allegations were indeed true, then Sandusky may have been allowed to sexually assault the children because nobody at Penn State was willing to report the matter.
What’s more, the whole sex assault scandal took a new twist when it emerged that Gary Schultz (senior vice-president for finance and business) and Tim Curley (director of athletics at Penn State) were accused of complicity in the whole event.
Although the two individuals claimed to be innocent and resigned from their respective posts, they still deserve to be prosecuted for not reporting the matter to the relevant authorities as the law requires. To make the matter even worse, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley were accused for lying under an oath before a grand jury when they claimed that they never received any reports about the alleged sexual misconducts done by Sandusky.
The conduct and character of these two individuals raises serious ethical issues that merit our consideration. How could fully grown up men with good reputations in the society fail to protect the children from a sexual predator? How could they turn a blind eye and claim ignorance of Sandusky’s sexual assault crimes? Well, it goes without saying that they deserve to be punished.
The actions of Schultz and Curley can be construed as behaviors of administrators attempting to conceal an NCAA breach rather than a culpable crime. The author states that the cover-up culture is quite prevalent in many popular college sports.
According to the author, it seems that the cover-up culture has transcended the ethical and moral standards and now it has permeated into the institutions that are supposed to protect vulnerable members of the society. It appears that officials at Penn State were more worried about the image of the school rather than the interests of the victims.
How else can one explain the failure of the officials to examine a University Police investigation of a 1988 shower incident that involved a certain boy and Sandusky? Well, it seems that the officials are simply telling Sandusky we do not care what you do with those children, but whatever it is, kindly do it outside the premises of this institution.
Although Joe Paterno is a man with considerable influence, he did not use it to investigate the matter. Consequently, Sandusky was absolved of any misconduct by the grand jury. The incident at Penn State is undoubtedly the worst scandal in the history of college sports.
Any university employee who knew about the crimes committed by Sandusky and opted to remain silent in order to protect the image of the school at the expense of the wellbeing of children deserves punishment, including Joe Paterno.