Quote:
Originally Posted by Pturner
Penn State is not the victim here. It appears that Penn State leadership facilitated the crimes by not going to police. The cover-up was institutional, was it not?
The very idea that only higher ups are allowed by policy to notify police of a suspected crime on campus seems wrong-headed. What could possibly motivate such policy but protecting the university at the expense of transparency, integrity and justice.
I realize that many if not most universities have this same policy. If we learn nothing from this tragedy, it should be that those self-serving campus policies are a travesty.
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That is not quite the case here. I think that if the graduate assistant had called the police immediately that night it would have been consistent with the school policy. (Assuming it is similar to those I have encountered at several institutions and corporations.) All policies I have seen do not restrict the ability to call the police when a crime is ongoing. But they do require notification of administration when police need to be contacted about something that happened in the past. Since Coach Paterno and subsequently the AD and others were notified of that abuse 24-48 hours later, there was no immediate need for a police presence at the school. The perpetrator and the victim were long gone. Therefore, it fell on the administration to notify the police, per policy, and get an investigation started. Whether they failed in that duty or not will be determined.
There may be a coverup in this case. But if it is determined that a cover-up did occur, I don't believe the policy caused it, rather the failure of people to do their jobs. Obviously, anyone who decided to bury this affair to protect the university's reputation failed miserably when you look at the result.