Penn State trustees fire football coach Joe Paterno and PSU president Spanier

AP/Newser.com ^ | Nov. 9, 2011 | Genaro C. Armas

[Colofornian]

Penn State trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier (SPAN-yer) amid the growing furor over how the school handled sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach.

The massive shakeup Wednesday night came hours after Paterno announced that he planned to retire at the end of his 46th season.

But the outcry following the arrest of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on molestation charges proved too much for the board to ignore.

One key question has been why Paterno and other top school officials didn't go to police in 2002 after being told a graduate assistant saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in a school shower...

[buccaneer81]

As a teacher in Indiana, what are the laws regarding educators reporting suspicion of child abuse? You're a teacher, a teacher's aide reports seeing gym teacher assaulting a ten year old boy in the locker room. You call the principal. Do you not call the police as well?

In Ohio, if you don't call the police or Children Services, you're going to be handing over your state license, and for damn good reason.

[LeonardFMason]

Why do you keep calling them “Joe’s showers”? I asked you before, i’ll ask again: Why do you hate Joe Paterno so much? You continue to single him out. You seem to have a greater hatred for him than Sandusky?

[MrEdd]

This thread you need to watch.

[Colofornian]

No, my friend, that is NOT a “fact”...I’ll bet you my cars title against yours that there were plenty of janitors and others who had no idea what was happening.

All NT claimed is that janitors knew...he didn't claim ALL janitors knew. Wow, you're hypersensitive, aren't you?

Read the Grand Jury presentment. Some of the most sordid details in that 23-page doc covers Sandusky "licking" a boy on Penn State grounds per janitors' testimony before the GJ. Hyperbole?...Wow!

[rintense]

The same in Michigan. You are obliged to report a crime against a child to the police.

[gusty]

Wow, you make it sound if someone stole a candy bar from the school book store. A ten your old boy was savagely raped in the football locker room. A helluva lot worse than “One guy, nine years ago, did something bad.”

[Darren McCarty]

PSU Attorney Wendell Courtney Second Mile Attorney Wendell Courtney

Did I read that correctly?

(facepalms, shakes head)

[mass55th]

Thanks for answering my question.

[Will88]

Yep, Sandusky was probably asked to retire after some of his activities were first noticed. And the more we learn the worse all this will look for all involved.

And, in the small town you describe, I won’t be surprised if we later learn that some of the Board of Trustees members knew something of this over those many years.

It’ll get worse before it starts getting any better.

[PieterCasparzen]

A child rapist is free on the streets of State Colleg and Joe Paterno is the story.

In organizations, both responsibility and authority increase as you go up the ladder.

Anyone in any management position at Penn State - including the board of trustees - would certainly report a rape on campus if they witnessed it one night while they were outside walking around the campus. Any of these folks who knew of this situation have an obligation to notify law enforcement of what they knew. I think more than these two will be fired in the future and undoubtedly there will be more criminal charges - and certainly civil cases - against others.

[NewinTexsas]

Look back in this thread. I have said nothing to defend the act, and yet I've been called some pretty nasty things, and threatened with zotting (or whatever the proper verb is). What does that say to you? Seriously, I'd like an answer. It's important. (and to my credit, I've managed to hit "delete" before hitting "post" when I replied with some of my own nasty insinuations, LOL)

I slip every now in then but I don't make personal attacks, don't respond to those that personally attack me and advise people that are personally attacked to grow a thick skin. It's just the internet.However, it does not sit well with a lot of posters here when we keep hearing the same old arguments, many reposted from other Joe-bot from other boards. It's been several days of this and I am frankly tired of repeating that JOE allowed the rape of multiple little boys when it was in his power to stop him. He didn't and he can't be defended.

[MrEdd]

Some people think those reporting to police requirements are so overblown. Obama’s safe schools czar is not without allies within the schools that are sympathetic to his agenda.

[JennysCool]

Thanks for the calm and collected post amongst the out-for-blood crowd. Sandusky probably did horrific crap, but this whole thing hasn’t been brought to trial. It’s like a national lynch mob going here.

[mass55th]

Thanks for your kind reply. I can’t take the credit for doing the right thing, because after all, I learned it from my parents :-)

[Teacher317]

LOL Personally, I was one of the "active" teachers when it came to getting in the middle of the troublemakers. I'd have been out the door looking to knock a few heads together. (Truly, I'm stunned that I was never written up for my own overreactions!).

However, my personal history does nothing to change my points. After the molester gets a fair day in court, he will likely have a long prison sentence. Those who failed to report in a timely manner should have been given a warning, probation, administrative leave, or whatever else is common for teachers, cops, social workers, etc who have similar failures. What the bored sports journalism majors are creating here, for their own amusement and self-aggrandizement, is beyond the pale.

[Eric Blair 2084]

yes, because no other college sport has ever had a scandal before. *rolling eyes*. One guy, nine years ago, did something bad... And so many people want to punish tens of thousands of others who were not involved, all to assuage their feelings in an orgy of plitically-correct lashing out. Pathetic.

—————————————

We hate PC as much as everyone. But we are not talking about lame black or Jewish jokes or comments about a woman in your offices big breasts. Boosters paying kids, selling jerseys for tattoos seem pretty tame in comparison.

[NewinTexsas]

Did I read that correctly?

Yes. The plot thickens. Now ask yourself.

WHAT did Sandusky have on whom such that he was allowed to play with boys for years and nobody could touch him?

[Colofornian]

Even IF some admins are found to have been SLOW or negligent in their reporting of these events...

I'm beginning to think we all may just want to put this kind of spin on permanent "ignore." I don't think we can get many understatements comparable to this one...

Let's see now...Penn State admins heard direct eyewitness reports of abuse in March of 2002...and here it is...it'll be a full decade later in about 4 months...and they still haven't filed a report on the on-campus abuse...and you have the utter gall to use the word "slow" as descriptive of that?

What kind of spin alien are you?

[Flycatcher]

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act

This is where the you-know-what may hit the fan.

If this act is enforced by the feds (coming soon) then, yes, all the PSU hierarchy, including Paterno, may be criminally charged.

[gusty]

You have more character than Joe Paterno has ever had or will.