Amity’s Mayor Larry Vaughn, a.k.a Joe Paterno
Yesterday CNN revealed that e-mails uncovered in Penn State’s internal investigation of the Jerry Sandusky scandal show that beloved, ever-so-ethical Jo Pa appears to have stopped the university from reporting the child-molesting ex-coach to authorities. The e-mail trail seems to show, the New York Times reported, that the university’s president, Graham B. Spanier; the athletic director, Tim Curley, and the official in charge of the campus police, Gary Schultz, were ready to report Sandusky in the wake of assistant football coach Mike McQueery’s eye-witness account of seeing Sandusky molesting a child in the showers. Curley then wrote the group that talks with Paterno had persuaded him that it would be more “humane” to confront Sandusky, bar him from bringing his young victims on campus, and urge him to get professional help. This, of course, freed Sandusky for a decade more of child sexual predation, with the kids foundation he had founded serving as his hunting grounds.
Humane indeed.
So, if the e-mails aren’t some kind of forgery, lie or hoax, it wasn’t that Joe Paterno merely failed to insist that the University take action to protect innocent boys from his old coach and colleague, though that would have been bad enough. If the e-mails are accurate, he actively discouraged other University officials from acting aggressively to protect the boys, and persuaded them than to protect their own, the football program, and the school’s reputation. As a result, at least four more children were sexually assaulted by Sandusky, according to the evidence presented at the just-completed trial that found him guilty of 40 counts of child molestation. Joe Paterno, along with Spanier, Curley and Schultz, shares responsibility with Sandusky for what happened to those boys, but Paterno most of all.
I don’t know why, but everything has been reminding me of old movies lately, and this revolting story is redolent of “Jaws.” Paterno played the role of the despicable Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity, who stopped the police chief from closing the beaches after a deadly shark attack, because the mayor thought it would be bad for tourism. As a direct result, the little Kintner boy ( and Pippin, a Labrador retriever) ended up as chum for a Great White. The only difference between the mayor and the iconic football coach is that Vaughn was a politician, and everyone knew he was a weasel whose values were skewed. He wasn’t like Paterno, a legend who had built his reputation on his advocacy of ethical values, and “doing the right thing.” When Larry Vaughn faced a test of his values, he played to form. When Joe Paterno faced his test, however, he showed that his vaunted values were only talk, and fed children to another kind of predator, not as deadly but just as voracious.
Let’s have an end to the Paterno worshippers’ lament about Joe’s “one mistake” and the injustice of his firing and disgrace. His fact-immune defenders deserve a place of shame next to those who call Richard Nixon a great President who was hounded out of office, and those who deny that Thomas Jefferson’s personal character was as flawed as his words were immortal. Joe Paterno knew that Jerry Sandusky was dangerous and that his prey were children, and yet Paterno not only did nothing to stop him from hurting innocents, he actively worked to allow Sandusky’s attacks to continue. Great men don’t do that. Good men don’t do that.
Larry Vaughn does that.
And Joe Paterno was worse than Larry Vaughn.
Joe Paterno, after all, was real.
_____________________________
Facts: New York Times
Graphic: Fascination With Fear
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
So sad that Joe chose Sandusky over children who were being molested.
Really?
The story itself does not claim that Paterno advised or encouraged a cover-up.
Note what is missing- the reason why Curley did not want to go forward with the plan.
Right, Paterno gave him a recipe for potato soup, and that made him change his mind.
The point is, Paterno’s story was that he passed along the information, and was uninvolved in the decision not to report Sandusky. The e-mails indicate that he was part of larger administrative discussions after that, and was an advocate for not reporting him.
At some point, Michael, you become like Mrs. Sandusky, willfully blind because you don’t want to accept the truth.
And now the power structure of a Division I football school becomes clear.
It wasn’t before?
They need NCAA needs to give the football program a death sentence .
William A. Levinson reveals more facts .
Paterno’s plan seemed ok if he followed through with it. If he ensured that Sandusky got help and changed his ways off campus, it sounds more ethical. Like if he made him go to counseling, etc. He just didn’t follow through with it.
Huh? Making a criminal go to counseling rather than calling the cops on him is “OK”? Why is it, do you think, that we have a sex offender register for people like Sandusky? Counseling usually doesn’t work. EVER. When you discover that someone is molesting kids, you have them arrested, Period. Stop looking for excuses for Joe–he had none.
Bad example Jack. We have a sex offender registry because of “THINK OF THE CHILDREN! I’m SCARED!”
It’s more: “The behavior is abhorrent and repetition is both likely and irreparable.” If it turns out someone can be rehabilitated with counseling, that’s all for the better, but the same goes for con artists and murderers. You wouldn’t think it was appropriate to not get the police involved for either of those types of people.
That’s certainly why we are so undiscriminating in putting people on that list, My point is that genuine pedophiles are widely regarded as incurable—it is unconstitutional to lock them up forever (pre-crime?) but dangerous to let them roam free without warning. As you know, I think they are ostracized beyond all reason, but letting someone you know molests kids stay free as long as he undergoes “counseling” is bat-nuts.
I think we’re essentially in agreement here, I just have a more cynical view of the origin of the sex offender registry.
William A. Levinson critiques the Freeh Report
The argument is unimpressive, debating leaves while ignoring trees and forests. And it loses me up front with the ignorant suggestion that the statement that Paterno’s legacy is “marred” might be defamatory. It obviously is marred. A reasonable reading of the facts shows that Paterno knew or should have known that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately with young children. Nothing in Levinson’s rationalizations changes that. So what if the university risked being sued by taking action that would protect Sandusky’s victims? If you really believe that’s a justification, your Paterno apologia know no bounds.
Civil liability arises from a violation of a legal duty. If the proposed actions would risk the university being sued, the proposed actions necessarily violate the university’s legal duties. Sandusky had emeritus status, and revoking his access to athletic facilities would risk the university being sued, because the university had a legal duty to provide Sandusky access to the athletic facilities.
More broadly, a duty to protect children from sexual predators does not and can not translate to a duty to violate legal duties.
Yes, it does.
Someone named Ed Jagels believed so. The Kern County child abuse cases were the result. A trillion incidents like what happened in Penn State is better than what happened in Kern County.
Grant Snowden, Gerald Amirault, and Timothy Cole were victims of those who believed that legal duties can be cast aside in the name of fighting sex offenders.
You’re WAY out on a limb here, Michael. There is no duty to avoid being sued if there is legitimate reason to risk the suit, and a good faith defense to it. Avoiding law suits is not a “legal duty.” Avoiding wrongdoing that loses lawsuits is. Penn State is going to be sued for far more money, lose far more in damages, over the coming law suits than any Mickey Mouse suit over evicting Sandusky.
The report concedes that the university was acting on the advice of its legal counsel, Cynthia Baldwin
If so, it would be on allegations that the university should have kept 2nd Mile off campus. Sandusky had athletic facility privileges due to his emeritus status, but these privileges did not extend to the rest of 2nd Mile. Joe Paterno had concerns that allowing 2nd Mile to use the athletic facilities would expose the university to liability.
More truth about the Freeh Report
http://restorepsu.blogspot.com/2015/07/defects-in-freeh-report-details-and.html?spref=fb
By truth, you mean
1) A pretty loose missed conflict (that may not have even been known),
2) A claim that the report was an accusation of a crime because some people used the report to call for a prosecution? (I don’t even know what they’re thinking here)
3) A claim of inflammatory statements…which are conclusions based on evidence… and there’s no attack on the evidence
4) A claim of incomplete evidence…which was noted in the report and the evidence was weighted based on that.
5) A claim that Paterno didn’t know of investigation into sandusky because exhibit 1A doesn’t exist, even though the reference was to exhibit 2A, which does reference contacting Paterno about it by name. Other nonnamed references that don’t mention Paterno are attacked for some odd reason.
6) A claim that a reference to discussing the incident with Joe, and, as a result, then not wanting to come forward with the accusation could mean something odd, so it’s unfair to suggest it meant the logical conclusion.
7) A claim that Paterno and Penn State coming forward with what they knew would be akin to inviting a libel or slander lawsuit, because he passed background checks that were completely separate from and did not include the information that Paterno and Penn State knew. Noone has ever been cleared of crime A, and then commited a crime B in history. Never. Claiming someone may have commited a crime B is libel and slander!
8) A claim that mentioning accusations against Sandusky would be defamation. I can’t even.
— I’m giving up on the rest of it. I was taking points in order and not skipping any.
This site is a very, very poor attempt at rationalization. Instead of restoring Penn State’s good name, it suggests that you have to throw out any semblance of reason to think Penn State should be restored.