The Joe Paterno statue outside Penn State football’s Beaver Stadium should be taken down immediately.
Joe Paterno, the famous Penn State football coach who won 409 games, has had his reputation and legacy tarnished by the current Penn St. child sex abuse scandal.
Although he did not molest or harm any children directly, Paterno’s legacy should be punished because of his knowledge of allegations of child sex abuse.
Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn St. assistant coach, was found guilty on 45 of 48 sex abuse counts in June.
The fact that Paterno knew about the abuse and failed to completely unearth the matter is abhorrent.
FBI director Louis Freeh recently conducted an investigation and determined that Paterno knew about child sex allegations and failed to report them.
Freeh’s 267-page report charged that Paterno intervened when a group of three Penn State officials were going to report child sex abuse allegations to child-welfare authorities in 2001, according to the Associated Press.
The Associated Press also said the FBI’s report included two e-mails from Paterno in 1998 that gave proof he knew of allegations and failed to report them.
Because Paterno did not do the right thing by letting the public know about the child sex abuse scandal, his statue, and all other forms of his public persona, should be removed from Penn State, effective immediately.
If Paterno would have told state officials about the allegations of abuse from Jerry Sandusky, he would have likely been called a hero.
Because he didn’t, his reputation should be tarnished.
Even though Paterno’s failure to report the allegations had nothing to do with his football career, his statue should still be removed.
Any man who knows of child sex abuse allegations and refuses to report them is despicable.
I lost complete respect for Paterno after reading the FBI report. I thought that a man of his caliber and integrity would not do a thing like this. I was wrong.
Ultimately, I am not the judge of Joe Paterno’s entire life. I acknowledge that he did great things for the Penn State Nittany Lions.
In the same hand though, I also acknowledge that he had a horrible lack of judgment. To honor a man for football but scold him for failing to report child abuse is pointless.
Officials at Penn State that are contemplating whether or not to remove his statue should consider this.
If you leave the statue up, you are saying that the man should be praised for everything he’s done. If you take it down, you are saying that he never existed.
I’m glad I’m not the one picking.
Shane Newell is a sophomore journalism student and the assistant city editor for the Daily 49er.
Doesn’t this paper have more important things to worry about affecting CSULB rather than someone else?