No character to assassinate. Nice to know that at least one person thinks that Spanier had no responsibility to protect PSU. Actually, you have company
The key entity that had the responsibility to protect the University when TSHTF was the Penn State Board of Trustees and they failed miserably.
Graham Spanier stood up for Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, 2 individuals that he knew to be good men.
I agree with Malcolm Gladwell's sentiments concerning Spanier and quote his book
Talking to Strangers on pages 141-142:
"Tim Curley and Gary Schultz were charged first. Two of the most important officials at one of the most prestigious state universities in the United State were placed under arrest. Spanier called his senior staff together for an emotional meeting. He considered Penn State to be a big family. These were his friends. When he was told the shower incident was probably just horseplay, he believed the were honest.
'You're going to find that everyone is going to distane themselves from Gary and Tim,' he said. But he would not.
Every one of you in here has worked with Tim and Gary for years. Some of you for thirty-five or fourty years, because that's how long Tim and Gary, respectively, were at the university....You've worked with them every day of your life, and I have for the last sixteen years.... If any of you operate according to how we have always agreed to operate at this university -- honestly, openly, with integrity, always doing what's in the best interest of the university -- if you were falsely accused of something, I would do the same thing for any of you in here. I want you to know that....None of [you] should ever fear doing the right thing, or being accused of wrongdoing, when [you] knew [you] were doing the right thing....because this university would back them up. *
This is why people liked Graham Spanier. It's why he had such a brillant career at Penn State. It is why you and I would want to work for him. We
want Graham Spanier as our President -- not Harry Markopolos, armed to the teeth, waiting for a squad of government bureaucrats to burst through the front door.
This is the first of the ideas to keep in mind when considering the death of Sandra Bland. We
think we want our guardians to be alert to every suspicion. We blame them when they default to the truth. When we try to send people like Graham Spanier to jail, we send a message to all of those in the position of authority about the way we want them to make sense of strangers -- without stopping to consider the consequences of sending that message."
* - This is not a literal transcription of what Spanier said, but rather a paraphrase, based on his recollections.