Penn State's current disaster
I need to type all of this out while I'm still so emotional about it all. But I know that, over the next few days and as the university as a whole recovers, my opinions may change.
For anyone who doesn't already know, Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State employee, was raping young boys in our football team's facilities. Then, when the information traveled up the ranks, Penn State officials covered it up. Sandusky has had charges filed against him, as well as Tim Curley and Gary Shultz who led the cover-up. University president Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno have been fired.
The media is handling this all wrong. What the public is hearing is that Joe Paterno is the villain. All discussion on this topic is about whether or not JoePa should have been fired. No one is talking about Sandusky's actions, or the people who were actually found responsible by the state. I'm still unsure of how I feel about Joe at this point, but I know that his actions do not warrant the media attention he is getting. It's distracting from the true villains. This article is a good summary of this problem: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onward-state/sandusky-scandal-national_b_1085201.html
I disagree with the Board of Trustees on this one. I am glad that Graham Spanier has been fired. But choosing him and JoePa as the only ones to fire is absolutely about public opinion rather than justice. Mike McQueary, who actually witnessed Sandusky's actions, took the same amount of action as Joe; he has not been fired. The university administration is choosing to fire the people who will get attention, while letting someone else slide who is just as responsible as JoePa.
Okay, so the riots. I don't like students choosing to be destructive in any way. It shames us as a school and it's irresponsible. But I do understand the level of emotion right now. Yes, some people are pissed that we've lost our head football coach, but it's more complicated than that. I know a lot of us just have so much emotion that we don't know what to do about it. We're angry and disgusted with Sandusky (as everyone should be), we feel betrayed by our administration, and we feel that the wrong action has been taken. Violence and destruction is not the way to deal with it, but the way we're being portrayed as only caring about football is incorrect.
I know a lot of people don't agree with me. Most of the country, including parts of Penn State, believes JoePa is a terrible human being. My facebook feed is covered in students fighting about all of this. And typing all this out doesn't do much in the larger scheme of things, but I need to express it right now. I hope our reputation as a university is not scarred forever because of this. I hope those boys are able to heal, and I hope Sandusky gets the justice he deserves.
We are not the actions of a few men; we are Penn State.
