Penn State U proves there’s never just one rotten apple

PSU received a $2.4 million Clery Act fine, but most of it wasn’t for its repeated failures to hand the winningest child rapist over to the police, or conduct some sort of investigation into reports that Sandusky was raping children, or take steps to keep him away from children or otherwise indicate that providing a place for a rapist to select and assault victims was seen as much of a problem until the fan was buried under about a yard of shit.

In a 239-page report, officials cited 11 areas of violations of the Clery Act, the federal law that requires colleges and universities to disclose crimes reported on or near their campuses and warn students about potential threats. Among them is the claim that senior Penn State administrators knew Sandusky was a suspected sexual predator and did nothing.

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The largest portion of the fine — about $2.1 million — was for improperly classifying reported incidents and disclosing crime statistics from 2008 to 2011. Only $27,500 was directly related to the handling of the Sandusky case.

But investigators touched on how a university that placed its football program on such a pedestal may have fostered a culture where crimes were overlooked or misclassified. Their review found “numerous instances where cultural and climate factors in the football program adversely affected campus safety operations, primarily involving the student conduct process.”

One example cited was the university’s handling of a 1998 complaint that Sandusky had inappropriately touched a boy in a shower. Not only was the incident not immediately reported, but when it was it was mislabeled as “administrative information.”