When sports and the law cross paths, no one ever really ends up happy.
The firing of legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno last week shows how strong the consequences of violating a legal code can be in the realm of college sports. The scandal itself was shocking, but even more unbelievable was the amount of time that passed before the scandal was uncovered.
After the Penn State Board of Trustees announced their decision, the subsequent protests seemed to be occurring on the assumption that Paterno was a victim of that decision.
But he was not a victim; rather, he was a significant actor in the perpetration of terrible crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State assistant coach. And the fact that Sandusky had been committing these crimes at least since 1998 speaks to the forgiving nature of the past and current college judicial process, particularly when it comes to athletics.
Paterno’s failure to take appropriate measures when learning of Sandusky’s actions follows the trend of how colleges deal with cases of sexual assault, especially those committed by athletes. According to a recent New York Times article, in many cases of sexual assault involving football players, the main disciplinary action taken is to suspend or place the players on probation, rather than expelling them. This was the case with the Arizona State case of 2004, when a female student was raped in her dorm room and the perpetrator, a member of the football team, was expelled but then readmitted within a few weeks. When the student sued the school, she received $850,000 in compensation and the school agreed to hire a women’s safety coordinator and overhaul its policies on sexual assault. Many legal experts saw this case as a positive turning point for overhauling the privileged status given to male athletes with regards to questions of sexual abuse.
Yet, last week’s incident displayed that this privileged status still extends to certain athletes, and even administrators. And the victims are no longer only women, but also children. The school is currently investigating whether or not Paterno and other administrators violated the Clery Act, which requires the disclosing and reporting of cases of sexual violence in colleges and universities receiving federal funding. If the school is charged with this violation, the case would have significant implications on future university policies. It would encourage such cases to be made transparent through stricter enforcements of regulations regarding sexual crimes committed on college campuses. Though this is an important step at the administration level, the community has an equal responsibility of being vigilant against these types of crimes.
This case is just one in a series of incidents regarding student athletes that shows how far a “culture of entitlement” can go when it comes to violating individual rights and civil liberties. There is an assumption that when it comes to athletics, certain things can be overlooked to preserve the program. We must remember that while we have a thriving sports culture at Duke, we should be wary of the “culture of entitlement” that could easily come with it. The Penn State scandal reminds us of the damage that such a culture can inflict on a school’s name, recognition and integrity.
I don’t think we can blame the students who protested last week for the loyalty and love they showed for their coach. We above all know what it means to love and respect a figure whom has led and inspired both athletes and students. We can, however, blame the system that allowed the crimes to pass unnoticed for so long. The “culture of entitlement” has placed high-level administrators in the difficult position of either following the law and risk harming their athletic program or quietly overlooking serious crimes committed by members of these athletic programs.
The only way to eradicate this culture is to hold student athletes and their administrators to the same standards of conduct to which we would hold any other student or official. And as easy as it is to point fingers at those higher up, students are equally responsible for creating and perpetrating this culture and the expectations we have of athletes.
It will be a long and hard process, but it looks like we are finally moving in the right direction in replacing this culture of entitlement for a culture of equal opportunity. The students and administrators at Penn State are facing the real-world consequences of certain actions and, sometimes more importantly, the failure to act.
It’s a difficult lesson to learn, but it always helps to remember that “You play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back.”
Sony Rao is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Thursday.
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