HAPPY VALLEY NOT A HAPPY PLACE

Penn State University officials appear to be taking a page from the Vatican playbook on dealing with sexual abuse scandals. They're hunkering down behind legal shields and boasting of eventual vindication with a pass-the-buck strategy, but nobody was fooled by the Vatican's play calling and my guess is that folks won't fall for Penn State's either. Whether or not University officials were required by state law to report the raping of a child on campus property is beside the point. The fact is, University officials knew that a rape of a child occurred on their campus and took no action to alert the police to bring the perpetrator to justice or to prevent other children from being victimized by that same perpetrator. Penn State officials may not have violated our penal code for their failure to report the incident, but they violated every civil code of decency that this world has ever known.

And what about the perjury charges? What is Happy Valley's excuse for two of their high-ranking officials lying to the grand jury investigating the incidents? The President of the University claims that he has the utmost confidence in those officials and denies their wrongdoing. Does that mean Penn State University now condones lying under oath? Is academic fraud or cheating now permissible on campus? It seems unfair to hold students to a higher standard than the administration officials.

Stay tuned…no doubt things will get much uglier before campus officials come to their senses.