Samples: Clery Act investigation may force Penn State to drop football
By CHUCK SAMPLES
ISL Correspondent
If the NCAA doesn’t force Penn State to put its football program on ice after the Jerry Sandusky molestation nightmare, the U.S. Department of Education might.
The NCAA is mulling whether to hammer Penn State with the so-called death penalty for an apparent culture of cover-up involving Sandusky, convicted recently of 45 child sex abuse counts, and — at least according to the Freeh Report — implicating Sandusky’s immediate superior, Joe Paterno, as well as administrators Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz.
There is still no guarantee of how the NCAA will respond, in some ways because there is no precedent for such a case, and even after the university files its official response to the Freeh Report a decision is probably some time in coming…possibly too late to affect the 2012 season.
Penn State leaders, though, have another worry on their hands, and in this case it’s not the dozens of civil suits that seem waiting for takeoff. It’s called the Clery Act. Or, more importantly, how the Department of Education plans to use it in this case.
Named after a Lehigh University student who was raped, tortured and murdered in her dorm room in 1986, the Clery Act deals with campus safety. It forces universities to alert the public of safety threats. It also has them disclose crime stats and take a host of steps to improve their campus communities.
With the Freeh Report saying Penn State had “total disregard” for the Sandusky sex assault victims and “serious deficiencies” in applying the Clery Act, the door is wide open for the Department of Education to investigate. And it is — asking for “everything” related to crime and the university since the first alleged incident in 1998.
The harshest penalty ever handed out under the Clery Act went to Eastern Michigan for (1) failing to notify after a student had been murdered in her dorm room in 2007 and (2) an administration cover-up involving the university president. The original fine of $357,500 was later shrunk to an even $350,000.
Word is the Ed Department is looking at yanking all of Penn State’s federal funding. Every last dime. Tens of millions of dollars.
Like the NCAA, the Department of Education hasn’t finished its investigation yet. And like the NCAA, this is unprecedented ground for the department — and not just in the penalty but the legal fight that would likely follow. Whether the Department of Ed pursues this option — and honestly, it’s unlikely it will — you have to think this would be one potent carrot for the Ed Department to wield.
Do what we tell you — dropping football included — or lose everything you get from us.
Thanks to a few individuals (I can’t call them men because that would give them far too much credit), Penn State is possibly being forced to choose between its football program and the university as a whole. Sorry, Nittany Lion football fans. There may be a 2012 season, but I’m not sure how there’s one for 2013 or even 2014.
