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How the mighty have fallen. In the aftermath of child sexual abuse scandals, Joe Paterno, Penn State head football coach for 46 years and holder of an NCAA Division I record 409 coaching wins, has been fired and is also battling lung cancer. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse University head basketball coach for 34 years and winner of 829 games, second among active coaches only to Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, is under media pressure to resign, is virtually groveling with apologies after making insensitive, pugnacious remarks about accusers, and is deperately trying to clean his tarnished image by spearheading a campaign against child abuse. I'm no fan of either coach--I find Paterno smug and sanctimonious and think he selfishly clung to a job that he should have vacated in favor of a younger man 10 years ago; I find Boeheim dour, cold, and truculent--but I'm dismayed that both have been judged and denigrated so hastily. Neither is accused of committing a crime, but both have been found guilty by the media of willfully hearing and seeing no evil and of putting any suspicion of wrongdoing by their subordinates out of mind in order to maintain peace in their kingdoms.
Allegedly, Penn State graduate assistant football coach Mike McQueary in 2002 saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky (who had frequent contact with boys at Penn State through the Second Mile, a charity for disadvantaged children that he headed) sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the football facility's showers. McQueary told Paterno, and Paterno reported the information to athletic director Tim Curley and supervisor of university police Gary Schulz but took no further action himself; seemingly, he did the bare minimum of what he was required to do by law, then washed his hands of the matter. Because he did not pursue the issue, the Board of Trustees fired him; because Curley, Schulz, and university president Graham Spanier did not take the matter to the police, the Trustees fired them. Boeheim's longtime assistant, Bernie Fine, was accused by two men of molesting them as boys in offenses dating back to 1984, and when a third accuser came forward with an audio tape that seemed to incriminate Fine, Syracuse fired him. So far, Syracuse officials say that Boeheim's job is not in jeopardy. Commentators throughout the nation, however, are calling upon him to resign.
Child sexual abuse is a serious crime. Perpetrators of such crimes should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and enablers who look the other way should pay a price for their complicity. But when it comes to enabling, there is at least a debatable gray area. Just how complicit are both those who truly did not know and also did not want to know what their subordinates were doing? How complicit are those who fulfilled the bare minimum of their legal obligation to report what they knew? In either case, punishment should not be exacted based on one-sided assertions and testimonies obtained during ad hoc meetings or media sleuthing. The institutions involved should presume the accused administrators and coaches are innocent, place them on paid administrative leave, and conduct thorough investigations that allow both sides to present their stories and allow the accused to face and cross-examine their accusers. Everyone--accused and accusers alike--should get a full and fair hearing. The alleged victims are probably not on a witch-hunt, but we don't yet know that for sure. There could be more--or less--to the incidents than we are aware of. In 2006, three white members of the Duke lacrosse team were wrongfully accused of raping a black woman. Duke administrators, before the police could conduct a full investigation, responded to the accusations by firing coach Mike Pressler and cancelling the remainder of the lacrosse team's season. It was later proved that the accuser was lying. There is an admirable tendency in our culture to pull for the underdog and to support the "weaker" or less "privileged" when they are pitted against the "stronger" or more "privileged": thus we often advocate for children against adults, females against males, and blacks against whites. However, to assume that the "weaker," less "privileged" party is a victim--and to assess blame and levy punishment--before all the facts are known is absolutely wrong. Of all institutions, universities, presumably devoted to the dispassionate search for truth, should resist a rush to judgment. If, finally, the facts show that Sandusky and Fine are guilty of sexually abusing boys, they should be imprisoned. If they show that Spanier, Curley, Schulz, Paterno, and Boeheim were willing enablers, they should be given the choice of resignation or termination.
Joe Paterno once said, "Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy." Those words have come back to haunt him--but it remains to be seen whether the haunting is for justifiable reasons.
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