The Right Opinion
Do the Right Thing
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has now issued his final report on the scandal at Penn State University, but the question remains: How could so many decent people fail to act when presented with an eyewitness account of sexual abuse of a child?
Jerry Sandusky, assistant coach at Penn State for 32 years, was convicted in June of 45 counts of child sex abuse. For at least 15 years, Sandusky used his position at Penn State to prey on victims, setting up a charitable foundation that recruited at-risk boys, many of whom he would abuse on campus and on team road trips as well as at his home.
But Sandusky's colleagues and supervisors turned a blind eye to what should have been suspicious behavior. Worse, they did nothing to try to protect the actual victims when a then-graduate assistant in the program, Mike McQueary, told them he'd seen Sandusky abusing a child in a campus locker room. In the Freeh report's words, university officials demonstrated "total disregard for the safety and welfare of the victims."
The report attributed this indifference to a desire "to avoid the consequences of bad publicity" on the part of the most powerful officials at Penn State. Even the college's beloved head coach, Joe Paterno, came in for scathing criticism. Paterno, who was fired soon after the accusations against Sandusky became public and who died of cancer in January, learned of Sandusky's behavior from McQueary. But the Freeh report noted that Paterno initially delayed passing on what McQuery told him because he didn't "want to interfere" with anyone's weekend plans.
It would be simple to lay the blame for what occurred on the culture of college football, where winning means everything, not just to the team and its players but to the schools as well. But the Penn State scandal is no different than similar scandals involving sexual abuse of children by authority figures in institutions as wide-ranging as the Catholic Church, state mental hospitals, youth detention centers, and the Boy Scouts. And in many of these cases, the guilty parties are not only the perpetrators but those who looked away or, worse, tried to cover up what they knew was happening.
The pattern seems to be more the rule than the exception. Confronted with evidence that a colleague, employee, or supervisor is abusing vulnerable children, too many people fail to intervene.
Is it the sexual nature of these crimes that paralyzes people? Maybe, but many people walk away even when witnessing the crime is less fraught with embarrassment -- it's common enough for bystanders to ignore when a victim is being beaten, robbed, raped, or murdered. There are a few Good Samaritans out there, but not nearly enough.
The fear of getting involved seems to be paramount in discouraging people to intervene, even when they know they should. Has it always been so? It's tempting to think we used to be better about doing what is right, but it's not clear that is so.
Almost 50 years ago in New York, Kitty Genovese, a young woman, was raped and murdered as some people watching from nearby apartment windows ignored her screams. And mob lynchings in the United States -- complete with crowds egging the murderers on -- were shockingly common in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, occurring as late as 1964.
What this says about human behavior is sobering. Edmund Burke is often credited with saying, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Certainly the good men at Penn State did far too little to protect children. Each of us should remember this the next time we see something happening we know is wrong. It often takes only one person to do the right thing for others to follow. But each of us, individually, has to assume the responsibility to be that one person when the occasion arises.
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4 Comments
Tad Petrie in Westerville, OH
Friday, July 13, 2012 at 11:32 AM
Has Mike McQueary ever bothered to explain WHY; when it was obvious that a crime against a child was being committed in that locker room shower, he did NOTHING to intervene?!!! He SHOULD have DRAGGED Sandusky out of that shower room, CALLED THE POLICE, and THEN informed the Board Of Trustees that Sandusky was on his way to jail for RAPING a young boy!!!
Ed Watts in San Jacinto, California
Friday, July 13, 2012 at 2:51 PM
Please, don't drag lynchings into the discussions. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States; of those who were lynched, 3,446 were black. This 3,446 number has been eclipsed by the number of white people killed in the United States by blacks since January of 2000.
Sandusky and Paterno are $h!+$, no doubt, but, please, stay on topic.
Thank you.
John S. Jax in Jax., Fl
Friday, July 13, 2012 at 2:54 PM
So, Where is the outrage against the devout Muslims in the middle east that admit they do the same thing?? Just askin'. JS
QJG in Queens, NY
Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 3:35 PM
Linda, Stop repeating the Kitty Genovese murder - apathy of her neighbors in Kew Gardens canard. It has been debunked by Kew Gardens historian Joseph De May and the people who shared on his blog their reactions to what they heard that very cold night in March of 1964-- who lived in the apartment house across from where the Austin St. first attack took place. There were very few eyewitnesses, because the attack happened after 3 AM, most were sound asleep. About 5-6 heard shouts below, saw a black man run away, a small woman struggle to her feet (he stabbed her in the lungs), and go around the corner to her bldg entrance out of eyesight of the small number of people who did go to their windows, and who told Mr. DeMay they did call the local police station (this was before 911). The police responded fairly quickly, but too late for Kitty, whose attacker came back, found her collapsed in the vestibule of her building, dying, and then he stabbed her, raped her (he was a necrophiliac) and robbed her. He was also a married man who left his wife and two children home asleep, to go out "and kill a white woman" especially a woman alone in a car. Kitty worked nights as a bar maid. There were two women who lived near to Kitty's building and heard something when Moseley came back the 2nd time, who did respond and actually came down to the street in their nightclothes and walk together into the vestibule and found Kitty, almost dead, stayed with her until she died. The whole NYTimes story by Martin Gansberg was aided and abetted in fabricating by his editor Abe Rosenthal, who went on to write his own book and make a lot of money, perpetuating the 38 eyewitnesses baloney. There was a man who lived in Kitty's building at the top of the stairs from vestibule, and who had called his neighbor in the building next door (the 2 women who came down to the street to find out what happened) who also called the police, after he heard the strange noises coming from the vestibule (the 2nd attack). BTW, Winston Moseley briefly escaped prison after being convicted and raped a woman in Buffalo. He became a lawyer in prison and advises his fellow prisoners on their cases. Thankfully, he repeatedly is denied parole, but he has lived on and on, has received a college education, and a graduate degree, courtesy the taxpayers of NY. The Times slimed an entire neighborhood back in 1964, then saw to it, the lie was perpetuated to the present day, and is still thought to be about apathy.