Penn State trustees: "We are accountable"

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA - The chairwoman of Penn State's board of trustees says the panel "accepts full responsibility for the failures that occurred" in the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.

Karen Peetz and other board members pledged to make changes to ensure similar abuse can't go on unchecked in the future. They say the board failed to ask tough questions about Sandusky.

The board-sanctioned investigation into the scandal concluded that Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other senior school officials "concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse" because they were worried about bad publicity.

A 267-page report is the result of an eight-month inquiry by former FBI director Louis Freeh.

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Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts.

Kenneth Frazier, who led the Penn State board of trustees' investigation, called Freeh's report "both sad and sobering."

23 Photos

Jerry Sandusky gets 30 to 60 years in prison

"We are accountable for what's happened here," Frazier said, adding that the board "did not force the issue" after initially learning of the sex abuse allegations.

Frazier added that "we have to take some time ... before we start thinking about how we think about Joe Paterno's entire life and entire body of work."

Penn State President Rodney Erickson said the university is taking steps to address the "most painful chapter" in the school's history.

[buckn]

The men responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The Second Mile program, and indeed all programs that deal with the welfare of others (including universities) should be constantly scrutinized and kept safe from predators and the like. These are axioms and I can't see how they could be up for debate.
But unless it can be shown that Penn State University was knowingly negligent in its duties to protect it students and those under its charge, I would think that the 96,000 plus students and faculty, who had no idea of the crimes being perpetrated, have suffered enough.
Penn State is a fine university with a long and heretofore honorable past. Disbanding the football team or otherwise punishing the vast majority of innocent people in order to wreak some sort of blind vengeance is not the answer.
I am not, I repeat NOT an alum of Penn State. I would root against them if they played my alma mater, or any other team in the Big 12. But that only goes as far as the score board. Penn State is filled with over 96,000 honorable students and faculty. To want to destroy it would be a crime.

[PegasusWing]

A public school teacher would be fired for failure to report child abuse. We should expect no less on the University level whether it be dean, professor, coach, board member, anyone! In fact, the man on the street is expected to report any "suspected" abuse. That brings about an investigation. Reporting suspected abuse protects children. All who knew of the abuse and did not report it, should be fired, not be allowed to seek similar postions elsewhere, and lose their pensions dating back to the first abuse. The public must learn the importance of reporting child abuse!!!!! This moral failure must never be repeated.

[smittyc]

Pretty big mess.

[Big-Daddy-Kahuna]

Damn you Joe Paterno! Damn you!

[sammie123456789]

How's come Joe Paterno's name is always mentioned first in a story about what was done wrong. It was never the school's president, the board of trustees.

[hypnotoad72]

Human nature can be a much splintered thing, but when it comes to child abuse, it is damn near MIND-BOGGLINGLY ***BAD*** that they CHOSE to ignore reports and other warnings.

And I don't often swear.

[-TeaPartyNation--]

Penn State is NOT the exception - it reflects the ROT that has consumed near every college and university in the US.

[hypnotoad72]

H-P,

Cause vs symptom - government entities can be bought and paid for (often by large corporations), and unions usually look out solely for the members' livelihoods within (assuming there are no corrupt leadership members within). Which is one reason unions are not well-liked. They talk only of themselves, assuming that everybody watching them automatically relates (and we understandably don't)...

But nitpicking aside, you're not wrong. There's plenty of corruption everywhere, it seems...

[buckn]

You are,unfortunately, much more right than I feel comfortable admitting.

[Elron_Aven]

Prove it guys. Resign.

[lfreefall]

I do not need to think long or hard about Joe Paterno's entire life and entire body of work, He made that decision for me when he covered up the sicko actions of a very sick child preditore. Penn's entire board of trusees needs to go. They should go directly to jail and so should anyone who was in authority at Penn during this time of terror on children!

[hypnotoad72]

Just to resign? Probably with a golden parachute for each one in the process?

Resignation is the start of the process where justice is the desired outcome. Not the end of it...