Public University Reform in the Wake of Penn State Scandal

A committee commissioned by Penn State University released its findings this morning regarding the mishandling and cover-up by university officials of reports the now convicted Jerry Sandusky was committing child sexual abuse at the university.

Former federal judge and FBI director Louis Freeh who headed the group said this, “Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

The Sandusky affair exposed inexcusable and shameful behavior by university officials who acted as if they were above the law and accountable to no one. The Penn State Four; former president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, retired vice president of finance and business Gary Schultz, and, even the once worshiped former football coach Joe Paterno, decided protecting the university’s reputation was more important than the law, the welfare of children and common decency. Their actions and conscious choices not to act were nearly as despicable as the unspeakable acts committed by the deviant Sandusky were.

However, it is foolish for anyone to believe that Penn State is different, that something similar could not happen at other American public universities. The governance model under which public universities operate create a culture that permits – one could argue, even provides an incentive for– university administrators to act selfishly and with impunity as long as the reputation of the institution goes unmarred. There is scarce public oversight. University presidents, the boards who oversee them, the coaches, the researchers and the other staff are rewarded and left alone as long as they continue to fill university coffers with the millions and millions of dollars needed to feed the insatiable appetite of the university machine.

The stinking Penn State mess should serve as a wake-up call. It is time to reform public universities from coast to coast.

I have used this space numerous times over the years to call for such reform. As I stated last November when the Penn State affair was breaking, University presidents should be barred from managing police functions. Suspected criminal activity on a campus of higher learning should be treated in the same manner as it is anywhere else, by law enforcement officials who are not being hamstrung or kept in the dark in an effort to protect the university cash cow.

The public must demand and put mechanisms in place to prevent university administrators from deciding who deserves protection. A free society puts the rights of an individual, even a poor child in a locker-room shower, above the narrow interests of a university. We need to send the strongest possible signal that never again will we allow a university president or underling to squash justice regardless of how much he fears that the report of misconduct might slow fund-raising.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register guest essay.