We Are Penn State!: A Failure of Leadership

by Rashad Grove
R3 Contributor

The late Paulo Freire in his classic text The Pedagogy of the Oppressed once said, “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral”. There is something remarkably fatal and simultaneously fertile in the ultimate pursuit, the protection, and the perpetuation of power. Power, when left unchecked, unchallenged, and uncritiqued, eventually destroys the holder of power and those who are subject to power. Also, innate in the dynamic of power is the inescapable reality that for power to authentically be power, it must engage in the enterprise of reproducing itself at all cost even at the expense of the most vulnerable. The latest development of the Jerry Sandusky and Penn State saga conveys the prevailing truth that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Jerry Sandusky under the guise of his charity called The Second Mile, was and is a professional pedophile and predator. On November 4, 2011, a grand jury that had been convened in September 2009 or earlier indicted Sandusky on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. The indictment came after a three-year investigation that explored allegations of Sandusky having inappropriate contact with an underage boy over the course of four years, beginning when the boy was ten years old. The boy’s parents reported the incident to police in 2009. The grand jury identified eight boys that had been singled out for sexual advances or sexual assaults by Sandusky, taking place from 1994 through 2009. At least 20 of the incidents allegedly took place while Sandusky was still employed at Penn State. The jury, consisting of seven women and five men, many with direct ties to Penn State, deliberated for 21 hours over two days. Sandusky faced a maximum sentence of 442 years in prison. On the evening of June 22, 2012, the jury reached its verdict, finding Sandusky guilty on 45 of the 48 counts against him. The heinous crimes committed by Sandusky were indeed deplorable and detestable.

Anytime a man constantly and persistently sexually destroys the humanity and personhood of young boys, with the Penn State leadership being fully aware of the pedophilic proclivities of Sandusky, it is an unparalleled disgrace. The most traumatic acts imaginable are now a part of the fabric of these young boys lives forever. But I would argue that the greater crime that was committed was crime of silence by the athletic leadership of Penn State embodied in the person of the now deceased head football coach, Joe Paterno. According to Richard Perez-Pena in his New York Times article In Report, Failures Throughout Penn State, “In an investigation lasting more than seven months, Louis J. Freeh, a former director of the F.B.I., found a legendary football coach bending his supposed bosses to his will, a university staff that was mostly unaware of its legal duties to report violence and sexual abuse, and a university president who hid problems from the board of trustees and was guided by a fear of bad publicity.”

Amazingly, while Sandusky was being investigated, Paterno was negotiating his big payoff. According to Jo Becker in his New York Times article Paterno Won Sweeter Deal as Scandal Played Out, “Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.” The silence about the criminal actions of Sandusky by Paterno and all parties involved unearths the subterrean truth that the power, profit, and prestige are more important than people, protection and principles

From a religious and eclesstical perspective, the Jerry Sandusky and Penn State saga has bequeathed to us a lesson that we me learn. Out of this realization, convicting and complex questions have now emerged. Will we be more committed to what Obery Hendricks calls the “institutional maintenance” of our religious institutions where we simply go along to get along? Or, will we commit ourselves to a genuine prophetic witness that exposes injustice wherever it’s located and seeks truth at all cost? When we are quiet in the moments when we should use our voices, we are complicit with those who seek to oppress the vulnerable and we silently sponsor and sanction their suffering. Often silence is betrayal. It was the barefoot prophet named Jesus of Nazareth who once suggested, “When you’ve done it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”