Soon to be Penn-iless State University

Certainly, the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State Football Team are harsh and well deserved, but pushing things into the academics arena is a bit too much.  I have said, and I still say, that any and all of the people at Penn State who allowed Jerry Sandusky to perpetuate his child molesting ways should all be charged, tried, and thrown in jail.

The NCAA pulling scholarships, fining the school $60 million, and keeping them from post-season play was harsh, but didn’t go as far as the so-called Death Penalty, which would have put an end to Penn State’s football program for some time.  That the school has accepted the penalties and not attempted to get them reduced speaks volumes that all those naysayers ought to pay attention to. Even the school believes there was some wrong doing on their part.

But, now they are faced with even more punishment. And, I believe in this instance, it is undeserved.

Recently, Penn State was notified by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that their academic accreditation may be withdrawn. What that does to the school, in essence, is put them out of business. Penn State could face the loss of federal student aid program eligibility, guaranteed student loans, federal research grants, and eligibility for state aid. Basically, that pulls the plug on all the ways in which students can generate the kind of money they need to attend a college or university.

At what point do we allow the university to clean up its issues?

No one, not even the university itself, has denied that things were handled improperly. But it wasn’t the school per se, just a few people. It really only comes down to one man, Sandusky, and a bunch of cronies who thought they could handle the matter internally and not have it become public fodder.

Now just how dumb an idea that was I won’t take the time to conjecture. But I do know that when you deal with things like this, it’s always best to get everything out as quickly as possible. Otherwise, it tends to fester. It never really gets better. Even with cancer and tumors, the first best option is to remove the offending part, in this case Jerry should have been thrown under the nearest Penn State campus bus.

But taking away the school’s accreditation is just as bad as allowing Jerry to continue his sadistic behavior.  It’s not just punishing the school; it’s punishing thousands of innocent students who have attended the school on good faith.  They may well be supporters of the school football team, but who wouldn’t be, really?

It’s a gross miscarriage of justice to pursue removing the school’s accreditation due to issues with the football team and a select group of administrators who are now gone.  The school doesn’t deserve it, the staff doesn’t deserve it, and most of all the students don’t deserve it.

It seems to me that the Nittany Lions are being treated like a piñata at this point. Having been hung out to dry, everyone passing by is taking a whack at them. The problem, first and foremost, was with Sandusky. He is a bonafide creep and boogeyman and deserving of everything that he has coming his way. The second layer is those who were in the know and who allowed him to continue to despoil those kids, and many more, without considering the extent of the damage he caused.

As far as the football team is concerned, the NCAA has taken care of that punishment. The courts have started the process of taking care of Sandusky.  They need to address the other culprits in the case and give them what they deserve.  The rest of what is going to happen at Penn State will revolve around the Civil Suits that are bound to be on the way.  And those lawsuits in particular, both the number and the amount of money they represent, may in fact accomplish what the whole idea about revoking the school’s accreditation would result in: to wit, the end of Penn State University.