An Open Letter to President Barron

Dear President Barron,

In the July/August 2015 (dead tree) edition of the Penn Stater magazine, you remarked:

"Nobody gets to see Penn State. They get to see Sandusky."

And then you asked:

"...how to get people to realize the number of compliments this institution deserves?"

The answer is quite simple.  

You and the unaccountable trustees must resign and let individuals who put the best interests of the University take over.  They will do what's necessary to restore the University's honor.

As the record shows, you flatly refuse to do so.

While you may have mouthed the words that the Freeh Report was "not useful to make decisions," you have agreed to stand by decisions made from it and live with the public relations that were generated.  

This is the record as agreed upon by the PSU BOT and the NCAA and as BELIEVED by the public:

Penn State "allowed Sandusky's serial child sexual abuse."  

The conduct of PSU officials was "egregious" and "amounted "to a failure of institutional and individual integrity far exceeding a lack of institutional control or individual unethical conduct."

Penn State had a "culture in which a football program was held in higher esteem than the values of the institution, the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and disturbingly, the values of human decency."

Barron has done nothing to correct the record
 on Sandusky and instead has contributed to it.

You have done NOTHING to correct that record and, in fact, have contributed to it.

You doubled down on the "lack of integrity" farce by committing Penn State athletics to  a new (unneeded) athletics integrity agreement with the NCAA.   

You also agreed to continue paying former Senator George Mitchell for positive public relations  disguised as monitoring.  Well, at least you now know that those payments for Mitchell's positive PR haven't amounted to jack squat.

And quite tellingly, when the BOT debated the issue of reviewing the Freeh Report, you sat in silence, holding your finger over your mouth.  

Silence.  There's been far too much of it.

When evidence surfaced in July 2013 providing that Louis Freeh lied about his discovery of the "secret file" of Gary Schultz, Old Main remained silent.

In September 2013, when Sandusky prosecutor Frank Fina publicly stated that he "did not find that evidence" in reference to the late coach Joe Paterno's alleged role in a cover-up, Old Main remained silent.

When the Moulton Report (p. 158) was issued in May 2014 and proved that the Penn State emails were not discovered by Louis Freeh, Old Main remained silent.

Was the silence a result of the embarrassment over an $8.5 million outlay for a fraudulent investigation and worthless report?  

Perhaps.  But then you made the situation worse by talking.

In April 2015, when asked about the return of the Paterno statue, you stated that there is a group of people who believe it should never be returned  "because of what they know."  Then you winked into the camera.

And you wonder why people still view Penn State and Joe Paterno as enablers of Sandusky's sexual abuse of children?

It is quite obvious that you and the unaccountable members of the PSU Board of Trustees (PSU BOT)  have put your self-interests ahead of the University's.

The PSU BOT won't correct the record because - among other reasons - it justifies their removals of Spanier and Paterno.

And you won't correct the record because you answer to the PSU BOT.

Quit whining, Dr. Barron.  

This is your Penn State.