PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR SLAPS SURVIVORS IN THE FACE
Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Corbett has stolen the joy survivors world-wide experienced when Penn State University as an institution accepted responsibility for childhood sexual abuse within its football program and agree to pay stiff financial penalties as penance for its crimes of omission.
Earlier this year Penn State accepted $60 million in fines imposed by the NCAA on its football program because of its alleged complicity in the sexual crimes committed on children by one of its football coaches and the failure of other coaches and University staff to protect children. The extent of Penn State’s responsibility was set out in great detail in the Freeh Report prepared by the former director of the F.B.I., Louis J. Freeh, who is also a retired federal judge.
Institutions paying stiff fines for crimes is common in the legal world. Several Wall Street Banks or financial institutions have accepted huge financial penalties for their part in the Great Recession in deals reached between them and the United States Justice Department. Even employees of those Banks have had to face criminal indictments for their part in financial crimes. Penn State’s former President and another official presently face similar criminal indictments for their failure to protect children.
The Catholic Church and its local Arch-Diocese of Los Angeles on the West Coast and the Diocese of Wilmington Delaware on the East Coast have had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars as punishment or compensation for their institutional part in allowing childhood sexual abuse of minors, but only after much heartbreak and delay by those institutions.
And this year when Penn State owned up to its role in enabling childhood sexual abuse and agreed to pay for its crimes as an institution, survivors world wide rejoiced in its honesty and hoped a new era of institutional responsibility had begun.
But enter Governor Corbett who is running for re-election. He also was the Attorney General of Pennsylvania during much of the Penn State scandal and he has been accused of covering it up and sitting on his hands by the newly elected incoming Attorney General of Pennsylvania. He also has stood by while the Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly blocked window legislation in Pennsylvania which would allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse in public, private and religious schools in Pennsylvania access to the courts to seek justice for the crimes they suffered.
Today the New York Times reports that Governor Corbett on his own has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA because it unfairly beat up Penn State and imposed illegal fines of $60 million on it and the innocent members of the Pennsylvania football community. The article can be found at –
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/governor-announces-lawsuit-against-ncaa-over-penn-state-penalties.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
The people of Pennsylvania should be ashamed of their Governor and he should be roundly condemned for his crass political opportunism and insensitivity towards the ruined lives of survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
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