Suppose you were at work and you learned that a fellow employee had committed a crime. What would you do? Now suppose that you were the boss and you learned that one of the employees had committed a crime, what would you do? Now let's make it worse; suppose you were the boss and you learned that one of your employees had killed someone. What would you do?
These are not easy questions to answer. If you saw someone shoplifting, would you turn him or her in? For many people the answer is no. Does that make them bad people? The answer in our system is that you have no obligation to turn in someone who committed a crime so long as you do not obstruct the efforts of the authorities to catch the criminal. The answer is the same even if the criminal is your employee, and it still does not change even if the employee killed someone. Of course, the moral thing to do is to turn in a killer, but that is still not a legal obligation.
Now supposed that you learn that a worker employed by your company committed a crime 14 years ago and at the time, no one turned him in. Remember that no one had a legal obligation to turn him in all those years ago. Should your company be punished now because no one turned him in years ago?
Obviously, these questions all pertain to Jerry Sandusky and Penn State. The NCAA has already made a big show of penalizing the Penn State sports programs. The NCAA has basically destroyed the hopes and dreams of hundreds of current Penn State students who are part of the sports teams because of what happened 14 years ago. The NCAA has also levied a major fine against Penn State which will be paid by the taxpayers of Pennsylvania who are clearly blameless in this situation. But that is apparently not the end.
Today comes news that the organization which grants accreditation to universities has put Penn State on notice that its accreditation may be suspended. That's right, because a pedophile who worked for Penn State preyed on kids and the university did not turn him in to the police, Penn State may lose its accreditation. Just think what that means. Tens of thousands of Penn State students will suddenly be working to get their degrees from an institution that will no longer be able to grant them. Huge amounts of grant monies that fund basic research at Penn State will be lost. And why? The answer is clear. The accreditation group is now on a liberal witch hunt. There were victims, the favorite group of all liberals. The victims must be avenged. Again, the favorite sport of all liberals. Since there is really no one other than Sandusky himself to punish directly, the libs are going after the university. Tens of thousands of innocent students and millions of taxpayers in Pennsylvania will pay the price even though they are totally blame free. Remember, most of the students on campus now were between 4 and 8 years old when all this happened.
It would be easy for the NCAA to have banned Penn State from NCAA sports for so long as any of the coaches, athletic directors and even the university president who were involved in the Sandusky mess are part of the sports program. Likewise, it would be easy for the organization that does the accreditation to threaten to lift that status if the folks involved in the Sandusky mess remain at the university. Were that done, those who are at least arguably guilty of misconduct would have to carry the burden of what they did. The innocents would not be punished.
While that would be easy, however, it would not make the big splash which allows the NCAA and the accreditation group to tell themselves how wonderful they were to strike such a big blow for the victim. In addition, by hitting the university, both the NCAA and the accrditators avoid the possibility of a lawsuit from the people who they are punishing.
The sad thing, of course, is that none of these ridiculous punishments do anything for the victims of Sandusky's crimes. I guarantee that there are no victims who want to see Penn State destroyed. Watching the liberal establishment run amok and destroy one of its own does not help them one bit.
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