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PSU Statement on Spanier trial decision

i may not agree e


Who could have removed BOT members since they were in charge? sincere question because i dont know the procedure.

Well, that's the problem, they are an entrenched self replicating cabal, they have $$ and political influence to make sure they or one of their cronies remain in the appointed positions.
 
No children are any safer if the public continues to think that this is a football thing. As Wensilver said, how did PSU's efforts since late 2011 help at MSU? At Baylor? They really didn't, because we're allowing the wrong causes of the crimes to be highlighted.

This x1000. No one knows or is talking about pillar of the community offenders both JS and Nassar should be learning opportunities. There was no damned conspiracy to cover for JS at PSU (now, TSM maybe, we'll never know b/c asshole corbett never looked).

The current narrative built by OAG/Freeh is bullshit. PSU paid out HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of $$$ for 3 misdemeanors due to a bad judgement call about a pillar of the community offender, no perjury, no obstruction, no FTR, no conspiracy, no felonies. This is why you take a neutral stance and wait for due process to play out before admitting guilt on anyone's behalf.

TSM and State of PA should have been the entities sued by people.
 
To me, the statement was all about reinforcing the negative. The public's perception of PSU was fueled by the idea of a cover-up, and conspiracy to do so. That has been proven in court to be not so. Why not trumpet that important fact, while still mentioning that the former Admins made what turned out to be incorrect judgment calls given what we now know. Defend the school, let the world know that we weren't bad guys after all, but we learned from the decisions made back then.

No children are any safer if the public continues to think that this is a football thing. As Wensilver said, how did PSU's efforts since late 2011 help at MSU? At Baylor? They really didn't, because we're allowing the wrong causes of the crimes to be highlighted.
They're not defending the university, that's the problem. There are many opportunities in this for the university to improve its image and point out where the media narrative fell short. But they're not doing that. They're tucking their tail between there legs, apologizing for things that weren't there, and running away. Any recent PR graduate could tell you to always find and exploit the positives in any negative situation. That statement did nothing of the sort. They failed PR 101.

Because that ship sailed years ago. The media and public is not interested in a PSU victory lap. It will just be seen as "PSU still doesn't get it even after administrators pled guilty". Just look at the headlines for yourself, GUILTY is all the media cares about.

I think the positives they were going for is that the University is fully in compliance, which is not the worst thing they could mention. PR 101 would not have suggested they focus on the admins not being guilty of the conspiracy charges because at the end of the day they were still found guilty of child endangerment charges which, quite frankly, to the public sound worse.
 
By throwing Joe/C/S/S under the bus they diverted attention from themselves. Shouldn't they share responsibility? Didn't they hire these people? Weren't they responsible for making sure good policies were in place? Didn't at least a few if them get a report from Spanier? Weren't a number of these people affiliated with TSM?

Heck, the guy who signed off to allow JS to bring kids on campus (one on one) got his name on the Creamery.

They threw themselves under the bus and admitted they had done so.
 
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Well, that's the problem, they are an entrenched self replicating cabal, they have $$ and political influence to make sure they or one of their cronies remain in the appointed positions.

So then why would you expect President Barron to put out a statement that would go against the people he reports to?
 
As a former alumni that donated modestly but cut off ties prior to this mess, I find the recent fundraising insane. I still get letters as though I still contribute and emails as though I still contribute. Lately there's not an option to unsubscribe on their crap propaganda through email. I really don't want to lay into the poor kids they have working for them but what's the alternative?
Hit the garbage can icon......
 
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So then why would you expect President Barron to put out a statement that would go against the people he reports to?

Sigh...

I didn't expect barron to do the right thing, that's why were are all so pissed. We're sick of these a-holes refusing to defend the damned university. Barron is a stooge puppet of the corrupt cabal.

Just look at how MSU has handled their crisis for a night and day difference. Their statements are a million miles away from ours (and they are in way more hot water than 3 misdemeanors).
 
This x1000. No one knows or is talking about pillar of the community offenders both JS and Nassar should be learning opportunities. There was no damned conspiracy to cover for JS at PSU (now, TSM maybe, we'll never know b/c asshole corbett never looked).

The current narrative built by OAG/Freeh is bullshit. PSU paid out HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of $$$ for 3 misdemeanors due to a bad judgement call about a pillar of the community offender, no perjury, no obstruction, no FTR, no conspiracy, no felonies. This is why you take a neutral stance and wait for due process to play out before admitting guilt on anyone's behalf.

TSM and State of PA should have been the entities sued by people.

Oh I agree with you there. While I don't think PSU should have paid a dime out before these cases were resolved, when we look back to 2011/2012, the public/media vitriol was so bad, I get why they wanted to get the ball rolling on settlements (just not to the tune they did).
 
Sigh...

I didn't expect barron to do the right thing, that's why were are all so pissed. We're sick of these a-holes refusing to defend the damned university. Barron is a stooge puppet of the corrupt cabal.

Just look at how MSU has handled their crisis for a night and day difference. Their statements are a million miles away from ours (and they are in way more hot water than 3 misdemeanors).

I agree with you on how MSU is handling things and how PSU handled it. I'm not arguing that PSU didn't handle it poorly from the very beginning, they did. The BOT threw PSU under the bus in November 2011 and then again in 2012 with the Freeh Report.

Barron is an employee.
 
I agree with you on how MSU is handling things and how PSU handled it. I'm not arguing that PSU didn't handle it poorly from the very beginning, they did. The BOT threw PSU under the bus in November 2011 and then again in 2012 with the Freeh Report.

Barron is an employee.

They just did it a third time today, apparently you just can't see it.

"their words and pleas indicate a profound failure of leadership."

Making a bad judgement call re: a pillar of the community offender isn't a profound failure in leadership, it's called being human. Instead of pointing that out the aholes pile on.

PSU shouldn't be making statements like this especially when there are going to be appeals, etc. Completely unnecessary and a low blow.
 
How about even though we are disappointed by the action (or inaction) of our leaders when faced with a difficult situation, we were pleased to have the court determine that there was no cover up by school officials in the Sandusky scandal. Although we are disappointed these leaders made a poor decision, the fact that they were cleared of the worst of the charges gives us hope that we can continue to build on the fine work we are currently doing to prevent this type of thing from happening again, and helps us realize we are still the great university we have always been.

I'm just spit balling here though and I don't have an entire department to write this sort of thing.
Problem with this is they'd be admitting that they failed in their fiduciary duties to the university...they did cash out a ton of checks to just about anybody with a hand out, all based on our guilt. If the court found no guilt, then they're on the hook for explaining their careless spending.
 
They just did it a third time today, apparently you just can't see it.

"their words and pleas indicate a profound failure of leadership."

Making a bad judgement call re: a pillar of the community offender isn't a profound failure in leadership, it's called being human. Instead of pointing that out the aholes pile on.

PSU shouldn't be making statements like this especially when there are going to be appeals, etc. Completely unnecessary and a low blow.

Appeals for pleaing guilty to EWOC? Spanier was found guilty so I can see him appealing that but C/S? By the way, this "pillar of the community offender" was accused of something similar just 3 years prior. It was a failure to not follow through completely knowing what they knew about 1998. It may not be the popular opinion on this board, but I've felt that way from the beginning. I was just hoping that during their trials something emerged that proved they handled it better.
 
Appeals for pleaing guilty to EWOC? Spanier was found guilty so I can see him appealing that but C/S? By the way, this "pillar of the community offender" was accused of something similar just 3 years prior. It was a failure to not follow through completely knowing what they knew about 1998. It may not be the popular opinion on this board, but I've felt that way from the beginning. I was just hoping that during their trials something emerged that proved they handled it better.

C/S testified that they felt they did what was best at the time with the info they had. Obviously in hindsight they wished they did more but who wouldn't? The state tried to crucify these laymen while letting the phd child psyc that had actual duty of care and an incident report from Curley go scott free.

And what did they "know" about 98? That the state said his naked bear hugs from behind in the shower was normal coach behavior and no big deal, didnt even restrict his access to kids. Ok...you blame the admins for following the standard the state set? Come on. That makes no sense. The state rubber stamped his behavior to anyone at PSU that even knew any details of it (which was schreffler, harmon, and maybe Schultz).

Are you not privy to the whole grooming a community (apparently well enough to include JR and CC CYS and a US president) to think they'd be the last person who would ever hurt a kid M.O.?

PSU claims to want to help educate and prevent more abuse but they are missing a good opportunity to educate through their statements but instead their statements further perpetuate the myth JS only got away with his crimes bc psu admins covered for him and that's B.S. And puts MORE kids at risk.
 
At this point in time, my attitude has really not changed and likely never will.

Deep down I think this entire sorry affair was totally overblown with respect to the role Penn State played in the whole thing and the actions of CSS. Had this been about anything other than an highly charged emotional issue involving young children I don't think it would gotten the "legs" it did where actual logic and perspective would not necessarily prevail.

In the end, there was really nothing sinister that occurred and given the times and perspectives, it's clear to me that CSS were caught up in something that may have been a judgement call at the time but once things blew up it turned out to be a real "shi* sandwich" for them and Penn State.

One can argue with the judgements that these guys made at the time, but those judgements and actions were far from a sinister conspiracy or motivated by something inherently evil. It's just unfortunate that based on their actions every thing that's PSU was put into the position of taking the total brunt or public wrath of this matter especially when there were people and entities that were much more culpable, but that got off the hook without a scratch. You are just not going to win any argument about fairness and logic when the topic is the welfare of young kids.

It's also unfortunate that the Penn State BOT's actually played a major role in creating this negative public perception of things by actually paying millions of dollars to a known hack like Freeh to investigate and report on this mess without clearly framing the limits of his mission. They then essentially allowed him to issue a report with not only his findings. A report that was limited to presenting the facts that he discovered and constructive recommendations on what to do going forward.

Instead they allowed him to also make assumptions on motives without even interviewing all the people involved and to draw conclusions largely on incomplete information and based on his personal perception of people's motives at the time. Bottom line, they allowed him to make baseless allegations and establish a false narrative that doomed the University and its former administrators to prove their innocence in the face of a public witch hunt. It was a report written by a career prosecutor with the clear purpose of labeling a target of the prosecution. This was no longer "innocence until proven guilty", but it was a case of "guilty until proven innocent".

Freeh did as he already has a long and proven track record of doing in every thing he is involved with. That's "tar and feathering" everyone even if they are innocent, without regard to real perspectives and considerations for the individuals he publically destroys.

As far as I'm concerned in the quest for the truth that's all there is. I'm sure there are corruption and personal motives by the personalities that sit on the BOT and the State that are at play, that had a role in the outcome, and that contributed to where we are. Some of those motives would likely make you puke as well. But the firestorm about this entire matter was emotional and it's tough to win that battle in public in a fair and honest way under those circumstances.
 
At this point in time, my attitude has really not changed and likely never will.

Deep down I think this entire sorry affair was totally overblown with respect to the role Penn State played in the whole thing and the actions of CSS. Had this been about anything other than an highly charged emotional issue involving young children I don't think it would gotten the "legs" it did where actual logic and perspective would not necessarily prevail.

In the end, there was really nothing sinister that occurred and given the times and perspectives, it's clear to me that CSS were caught up in something that may have been a judgement call at the time but once things blew up it turned out to be a real "shi* sandwich" for them and Penn State.

One can argue with the judgements that these guys made at the time, but those judgements and actions were far from a sinister conspiracy or motivated by something inherently evil. It's just unfortunate that based on their actions every thing that's PSU was put into the position of taking the total brunt or public wrath of this matter especially when there were people and entities that were much more culpable, but that got off the hook without a scratch. You are just not going to win any argument about fairness and logic when the topic is the welfare of young kids.

It's also unfortunate that the Penn State BOT's actually played a major role in creating this negative public perception of things by actually paying millions of dollars to a known hack like Freeh to investigate and report on this mess without clearly framing the limits of his mission. They then essentially allowed him to issue a report with not only his findings. A report that was limited to presenting the facts that he discovered and constructive recommendations on what to do going forward.

Instead they allowed him to also make assumptions on motives without even interviewing all the people involved and to draw conclusions largely on incomplete information and based on his personal perception of people's motives at the time. Bottom line, they allowed him to make baseless allegations and establish a false narrative that doomed the University and its former administrators to prove their innocence in the face of a public witch hunt. It was a report written by a career prosecutor with the clear purpose of labeling a target of the prosecution. This was no longer "innocence until proven guilty", but it was a case of "guilty until proven innocent".

Freeh did as he already has a long and proven track record of doing in every thing he is involved with. That's "tar and feathering" everyone even if they are innocent, without regard to real perspectives and considerations for the individuals he publically destroys.

As far as I'm concerned in the quest for the truth that's all there is. I'm sure there are corruption and personal motives by the personalities that sit on the BOT and the State that are at play, that had a role in the outcome, and that contributed to where we are. Some of those motives would likely make you puke as well. But the firestorm about this entire matter was emotional and it's tough to win that battle in public in a fair and honest way under those circumstances.

Slow clap. Great post.
 
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By throwing Joe/C/S/S under the bus they diverted attention from themselves. Shouldn't they share responsibility? Didn't they hire these people? Weren't they responsible for making sure good policies were in place? Didn't at least a few if them get a report from Spanier? Weren't a number of these people affiliated with TSM?

Heck, the guy who signed off to allow JS to bring kids on campus (one on one) got his name on the Creamery.
None of them got a report from Spanier until after the investigation started. The policy in place was fine, CSS just failed in carrying it out. The BOT should be blamed for not handling the scandal properly once the shit it the fan. They were awful. They lacked foresight and then were shell shocked. However this whole thing about holding them criminally liable is nonsense.
 
Slow clap. Great post.

Yea, I'm about wore thin with all of this.

I'll never be ready to move on and in the spirit of basic fairness and basic human decency I will continue to publicly contest the haters when the spew their emotional and agenda driven nonsense without knowing all the facts and when they don't consider the perspectives at the time. If there was something malicious or intentionally corrupt or incompetent involved I'd feel differently, but that's not the case here.

And although I'm honestly concerned and sympathic to kids that may have been "true victims" of this, I'm also sympathetic to other "collateral victims" caught up in this mess only because they didn't fully understand or foresee the consequences of their actions or their inactions.

I guess what bothers me the most is the pompous, self righteousness, and judgmental "second guessing idiots" that are quick to criticize and say they would have reacted differently but that will never be confronted with a similar situation in their life to test their vast wisdom.

Like Joe Paterno said "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I would have done more". Unfortunately, he was one of the only strong figures in this that always tried to do what's right regardless of the personal price, but was made a "scapegoat" without having the ability to defend himself.

Joe wasn't perfect and he made mistakes, but this matter was not about him or CSS and the focus on them was not only unjust, but it greatly distracted from the real issue of child predators and the protection of innocent kids. As far as I'm concerned, nothing positive has changed to protect kids except for the creation of a culture of "cover your ass" political correctness.

Sad affair!
 
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None of them got a report from Spanier until after the investigation started. The policy in place was fine, CSS just failed in carrying it out.

If the policy in place was fine why did we need the Freeh recommendations? Why is the BOT now touting their accomplishments wrt fixing the policies?
 
Here is where our BoT belongs:

14020-grg.jpg



and where they can sing the "e-e" song and continue to do this:

eKTJdjIERZG5ZJH0Najf_j8.gif
 
Wait, what? While I realize the "leadership" involved at PSU, this should be the school's chance to take a victory lap of "all your haters were idiots and wrong" rather than proclaiming guilt. No conspiracy, no perjury, no failure to report, no obstruction of justice.

This is a win for the former leaders of Penn State and our idiot school is painting it as a loss.
Unfortunately there are only a few people who won in this sad situation. At the top of the list are 2 who challenge each other for the biggest Loser. Mike M. and Rodney E both reaped financial awards for the pain and suffering they inflicted on Penn State.
 
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Because that ship sailed years ago. The media and public is not interested in a PSU victory lap. It will just be seen as "PSU still doesn't get it even after administrators pled guilty". Just look at the headlines for yourself, GUILTY is all the media cares about.

I think the positives they were going for is that the University is fully in compliance, which is not the worst thing they could mention. PR 101 would not have suggested they focus on the admins not being guilty of the conspiracy charges because at the end of the day they were still found guilty of child endangerment charges which, quite frankly, to the public sound worse.
They still should be defending the university regardless of the public interest. It's their job to get out facts, not curl up in the fetal postion. Like an earlier poster wrote, hundreds of millions for three misdemeanor charges...that's ridiculous.
 
Appeals for pleaing guilty to EWOC? Spanier was found guilty so I can see him appealing that but C/S? By the way, this "pillar of the community offender" was accused of something similar just 3 years prior. It was a failure to not follow through completely knowing what they knew about 1998. It may not be the popular opinion on this board, but I've felt that way from the beginning. I was just hoping that during their trials something emerged that proved they handled it better.
It was three misdemeanors....hope all you want but in the end it was simply a bad judgment call not some evil act. It certainly wasn't worth hundreds of millions and likely the majority of university officials would have handled it the same way.
 
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If the policy in place was fine why did we need the Freeh recommendations? Why is the BOT now touting their accomplishments wrt fixing the policies?
The policies should have resulted in a report. They were fine in that aspect. The new policies require that ALL employees report such things to the proper authorities. Freeh' report was bogus, but the University definitely has more stringent guidelines as a result of it.
 
My final post. I have but three words: F#ck Penn State.
 
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Sure, if they want to make Penn State look even worse. "We fully support these men who just pled guilty or were convicted. FULLY SUPPORT!!!"

Unbelievable.
They were guilty of making bad decisions. Not guilty on conspiracy and trying to cover up. HUGE difference but not what the media sells. Up next Spanier vs Freeh and Paterno vs NCAA/old BOT. As Karen Carpenter said "we've only just begun"
 
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They were guilty of making bad decisions. Not guilty on conspiracy and trying to cover up. HUGE difference but not what the media sells. Up next Spanier vs Freeh and Paterno vs NCAA/old BOT. As Karen Carpenter said "we've only just begun"
So Penn State should fully support the men who made poor decisions that allowed a serial pedophile to remain free and ultimately cost the University a quarter billion dollars? How does that make sense?
 
So Penn State should fully support the men who made poor decisions that allowed a serial pedophile to remain free and ultimately cost the University a quarter billion dollars? How does that make sense?
You're making it sound like they made those decisions to hurt people. Wrong. They made bad decisions which hurt people. HUGE difference. They should and will pay for those bad decisions. That does not mean however they are bad people which is what u claim to be true.
 
You're making it sound like they made those decisions to hurt people. Wrong. They made bad decisions which hurt people. HUGE difference. They should and will pay for those bad decisions. That does not mean however they are bad people which is what u claim to be true.
You don't support those people though. Yes, it may have just been a mistake, but it was a massive one that ended up hurting a lot of people.
 
They are defending the university in an appropriate way. Everything in the statement was truthful. It's not their job to defend former employees who have just been convicted or plea bargained to a guilty misdemeanor count, and I wouldn't expect or want them to do so. That's the job of these individuals and their counsels. For the record, I think the guilty verdicts and plea bargains are hogwash, but I don't expect PSU to take their side. The verdicts are what they are.
No, why should we expect people to do the right thing. Let's just do the expected thing - the expected thing is show how honorable you yourself are. puke!!!!!!!!!! The School hasn't done the right thing anywhere regarding this issue!
 
They just did it a third time today, apparently you just can't see it.

"their words and pleas indicate a profound failure of leadership."

Making a bad judgement call re: a pillar of the community offender isn't a profound failure in leadership, it's called being human. Instead of pointing that out the aholes pile on.

PSU shouldn't be making statements like this especially when there are going to be appeals, etc. Completely unnecessary and a low blow.
It's complete failure to both the victim and PSU. They screwed us.
 
They still should be defending the university regardless of the public interest. It's their job to get out facts, not curl up in the fetal postion. Like an earlier poster wrote, hundreds of millions for three misdemeanor charges...that's ridiculous.

I'm very curious to how they will react to Freeh's comment's ( drunk or not) calling out Barron to step down as well...

If the University was REALLY acting in good faith..WHY..MY GOD WHY would his comments go with no response.

Again..as an Alumni..and as a past $$ supporter of my beloved school...I'm SO fckn DISGUSTED on how weak those in charge now really are...
 
It was three misdemeanors....hope all you want but in the end it was simply a bad judgment call not some evil act. It certainly wasn't worth hundreds of millions and likely the majority of university officials would have handled it the same way.

I never stated anything abiut it being an evil act and I know what the charges are. it was a bad judgement call and I believe there also was a better way to handle it. You don't agree, fine, after all it is just my opinion.
 
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