Penn State in the
State Pin
Let’s take some time to reflect. Before the Sandusky case
when thinking about Penn State what came to mind? Maybe a school that was rich
in spirit and tradition. You could even say a school with high prestige but
after the Sandusky case the image of the University has been tremendously
altered. Now if you lived under back in 2011 or have no idea what I’m referring
to then I will fill you in of the situation.
Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky (1969-1999) was investigated
and indicted in 2011 for up to 52 counts of molestation. Now this wasn’t just
any molestation, it was child molestation. These children would be anyone from
football prospects to your average student. Sandusky’s started on June 22,2012
and on October 9, 2012 he was convicted of 45 out of 52 counts of sexual abuse.
He was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison. The messed up thing about it was
that the late former Football coach Rick Paterno and the school vice president
Gary Schultz had known about these allegations but failed to report them[1].
Now you
may be wondering “What happened to Penn State as a result?” Well a separate investigation
was held by the FBI and also result in its own consequences. The NCAA enforced
the most severe penalties ever on one of its schools. This included a $60
million fine, a ban from postseason events for four years, and also striping
the University of its trophies from 1998-2011. These penalties were chosen because
according to the NCAA President, football was the forefront instead of the
student’s health and security. Also the
conference in which Penn State is in (The Big Ten Conference) also added a $13
million fine, that’s a combined total of $73 million dollars.[2]
There are still currently investigations being held for the University on
whether or not Penn State reported the incident properly according to the
federal law.
Now the main question would have to be “Did Penn State handle
their sex crisis correctly?” The answer would have to be “no they didn’t.” First
of all the staff member that knew of the sexual assaults didn’t notify anyone
of what was going on. That right there puts students’ safety at risk. As relating
to our class you don’t know if the situations had affects on the victims. The
mental affects could be something that the victims would need counseling for.
That’s one thing the University themselves could offer the people who were assaulted.
I search on Penn State’s website and they do indeed offer counseling (http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/counseling/)
[3]therefore
that would have been easily accessible. This situation reminds me of the
section we are currently on in class “The Origins of Homosexuality”. In the
powerpoint when it talks about “Slave Pet Boys” that basically describes the
victims. They were young boys being sexually exploited. Also it’s similar to
the Melanesian model by the people who were involved. The situation will never
be truly solved but the University could help insure that the victims get help
needed.
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