State Collage, PA – Penn State trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier amid the growing furor over how the school handled sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach.
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The massive shakeup Wednesday night came hours after Paterno announced that he planned to retire at the end of his 46th season.
But the outcry following the arrest of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on molestation charges proved too much for the board to ignore.
Speaking at his house to students, Paterno said, “Right now, I’m not the football coach, and that’s something I have to get used to.”
I hope this will serve as a lesson for our community and the schools.. when you have someone covering, you fire him.
Prez Spanier is Jewish. Does this mean that it is all an antisemitic plot? Should we organize an internet petition to Obama to have him re-hired?
Ooh Harry, you’re opening yourself up for criticism (even though you’re not wrong).
Anyway, the trustees can blame JoePa all they want (read:scapegoat), but he did everything he was legally required to, and, truth be told, I think what most people would do if the accused was a close friend of theirs. Honestly, if it was your good friend or family member ch”v, I doubt that you would follow up on it to the extent of ensuring the police were involved (remember, Joe didn’t see anything on his own or hear from any victims). You would likely do what he did – report it to a superior, and trust that it would be taken care of from there, rather than push and push until your loved one was locked away forever.
I know that what I’m saying isn’t the popular opinion, but the Torah tells us not to judge others until we’re in their shoes.
#2 : I hope you haven’t already forgotten that we had the Owner/menahel of a beloved Yeshiva covering up for one of his Rabbeim for decades. I agree with #1 completely.
And do something.
I agree that there are a lot of incompetent and a few evil teachers and schools in our “system”, but I did something.
I opened two schools where the students and their needs REALLY come first.
And they love the schools, and thus we are very successful at educating them.
The teachers know to check their egos at the door.
I’m not saying this to show off; this board is anonymous. I’m saying that the problems won’t solve themselves, and complaining on message boards won’t solve anything either.
If you have a smidgen of talent, get up and use it, and be a part of the solution.
Enough grassroots efforts and we can fix what’s broken.
The coach was fired because he only told his “boss” and didn’t call the police to report what he knew. And just like people in the frum community run to their gadolim to take care of these problems, Penn State’s president acted like majority of gadolim do by protecting the brand name and image of his institution. Child rape continued to happen because of that. A repeating pattern from this case is that institutions like schools, churches, and organized communities care about their image first and not about the well being of individuals. Your only help will come from the police or the DA.
The reason that there are many who do not report to the police in ISRAEL, is because the police and the charedim have a long history of distrust. Charedim are generally vilified by the secular press at every opportunity. And in Israel , there is no guarantee of a fair trial when it comes to a secular judge. I have personally been to traffic court and witnessed a biased judge reducing fines for the chilonim and giving the maximum fines to anyone who looked charedi. This is why there is a need for charedi political parties, so that they are given a say in how the government is run. At a traditional wedding in Israel I heard the chiloni mother tell her friend how pleased she was that her secularized daughter married a traditional boy but thank G-d he’s not charedi. This attitude is why there are such stringent measures meted out to anyone who Mosers=they are fueling the secular hatred for chariedim by reporting.
BTW In Israel if there is suspected child abuse, the number to call is the Magen organization. The will act quickly.