Why Penn State Football Deserves The ‘Death Penalty’
The NCAA should apply its “death penalty” to the Penn State University football program by canceling the next two seasons. Â It would actually be doing the university a favor by applying its harshest medicine.
Lots of knashing of teeth and expressions of shock and dismay by commentators and members of the public came yesterday following former FBI director Louis Freeh’s announcement that his investigation determined that Penn State University‘s leadership engaged in a systematic and sustained coverup of former football coach Jerry Sandusky‘s heinous sex crimes against children.
Today’s edition of The New York Times leads with a four-column above the fold story and photo spread that is so damning, that anyone who maybe a Penn State alumnus or affiliated with the university could only feel deep shame.
The country should be ashamed.
But no one should be surprised. This is a university that made a calculated decision that football was more important that the well being of hundreds of children, whom Sandusky literally hunted by using his now-defunct Second Mile Foundation for at-risk children–to recruit them as intended targets for his perverse, pedophiliac attraction toward prepubescent boys.
Freeh said during his press conference yesterday that “the most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.”
And, Freeh said most importantly, they did so for “fear of bad publicity” that would ultimately damage the exalted football program.
These repeated crimes, for which Sandusky was found guilty last month of 45 counts of sexual abuse, were affirmatively protected from investigation and prosecution through a conspiracy led by Graham Spanier, the former president and a licensed therapist; Joe Paterno, the once beloved football coach, an iconic figure who is forever discredited in death; Tim Curley, the former athletic director; Gary Schultz, a university vice president, who oversaw campus police and Thomas Harmon, the former chief of campus police.
Curley and Schultz face forthcoming criminal trials, among their charges are perjury.
When you stack up these staggering criminal convictions, as well as additional pending criminal charges and the  Freeh report that lays out a calculated conspiracy, the breathtaking institutional overreach at Penn State to protect the football program, simply pales when compared to extensive rule violations by Southern Methodist University’s football program, whom the NCAA punished with the “death penalty” by canceling the SMU’s 1987 game schedule. Cash and cars for athletes versus a football coach who engaged in the systematic rape of children in the university football athletic facility, allowed to continue for 14 years with impunity while the entire leadership of the university remained complicit in silence and inaction?
This is so obvious, even to the most casual observer.
Shut down the Penn State football program for two years.
The NCAA, which has implemented the “death penalty” only five times before, would actually be doing the university a favor. Penn State needs to clean house from top to bottom–reset its priorities and demonstrate through its practices and values that it understands the depth of the Spanier-Paterno-Sandusky violations and how far the institution has strayed from its main purpose, which is to educate young people as future thinkers and leaders of our country.
READ:Â Amid Pedophila Scandal, Penn State to Hasten Football Coach Retirement
Another reason for the NCAA to apply the death penalty is Penn State’s failure to implement the Clery Act, a federal law that requires university and colleges to annually report crimes committed on campus to the Department of Education. Failure to report campus crimes includes penalties up to $27, 500 per infraction. Indeed, not only has Penn State failed to report these covered up crimes to the federal government, but according to Freeh’s report, they hadn’t even implemented the Clery Act itself:
As you will read in our report, Penn State failed to implement the provisions of the Clery Act, a 1990 federal law that requires the collecting and reporting of the crimes such as Sandusky committed on campus in 2001. Indeed, on the day Sandusky was arrested, Penn State’s Clery Act implementation plan was still in draft form. Mr. Spanier said that he and the Board never even had a discussion about the Clery Act until November 2011.
This stunning finding by Freeh raises even more questions. Fortunately, the Department of Education had announced in November 2011 it was opening up an investigation into “sexual misconduct” at Penn State, that will review compliance with the Clery Act. But as Freeh’s report makes clear, Penn State had not even implemented the law. How did Penn State manage to escape implementation without the Department of Education raising this as an issue years ago? Â It is my hope that the federal government will throw the book at Penn State, max out their Clery penalties and leverage future federal aid by insisting on rigorous oversight and compliance.
Penn State’s sordid chapter of Jerry Sandusky and its pedophilia scandal will not be over for some time to come. Sandusky faces sentencing next month; Curley and Schultz face criminal trials; the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office is likely to continue, if not expand its investigation based upon the findings of the Freeh report and a forthcoming investigation by the federal department of education has yet to be finalized.
And then there are the children.
All the children who were raped and abused by not only Sandusky, but, by extension, by Penn State University’s active conspiracy and coverup. Somehow, someway, the university needs to compensate these victims for this heart wrenching abuse that will surely be with them to end of their lives. All the more important that Penn State University football should be demoted so the State College community and the country can heal.
Tanya L. Domi is the Deputy Editor of the New Civil Rights Movement. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and teaches human rights in East Central Europe and former Yugoslavia.  Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi was a nationally recognized LGBT civil rights activist who worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the campaign to lift the military ban in the early 1990s. Domi has also worked internationally in a dozen countries on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights and gender issues.  She is chair of the board of directors for GetEQUAL. Domi is currently writing a book about the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.
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U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia, is under fire after praising University of Mississippi students, some wearing American flag outfits, mocking a Black woman protester by making monkey sounds and shouting, “lock her up.”
“Counter-protestors at the University of Mississippi made racist remarks — including monkey noises and comparisons to Lizzo — towards a Black woman who was part of a planned protest against the war in Gaza,” Los Angeles Magazine reported Friday.
Collins, who tried to defund Vice President Kamala Harris’ Office in November, declared his support for the counter-protesters at “Ole Miss,” as the University is called.
“Ole Miss taking care of business,” he wrote on social media, atop the video (below).
The counter-protesters, as evidenced in the video, appear to be mostly white.
A large number of users on the social media platform X responded, accusing the Congressman and the counter-protesters of racism.
“When is the inevitable ‘I don’t have a racist bone in my body’ tweet coming,” wondered Rewire News Group editor-at-large Imani Gandy.
“Which part is your favorite, Mike?” asked Fred Wellman, the former executive director of The Lincoln Project. “Is it the white kid acting like a monkey at the black woman or the white security guy acting like she’s a threat? I’m trying to figure out which flavor of racism has you all excited the most?”
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Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo responded to the Georgia GOP congressman, “Thanks for confirming you’re a massive racist piece of sh*t.”
Mississippi Free Press news editor Ashton Pittman wrote: “Rep. Mike Collins, R-Georgia, praises a video showing a University of Mississippi frat boy dancing like a monkey and making monkey noises near a Black woman student who was protesting for Palestine while other frat boys chant ‘lock her up.'”
In a separate post describing a separate video taken of the same group Pittman wrote: “Frat bros at @OleMiss chant, ‘Lizzo! Lizzo!’ and shout, ‘F**k you fatass, f**k you b*tch’ at a Black woman who was protesting for Palestine. Do people really think these counterprotestors are doing it to support Jews?”
Journalist John Harwood did not mince words, writing, “Congressman proud of the racism.”
“Okay, Mike. We get it,” wrote podcast host, documentary director, and author W. Kamau Bell. “You want to be famous for being a racist. Fine. I’ll help you become a famous racist. You’re welcome.”
The original video is here.
See Rep. Collins’ post and the video below or at this link.
Caution: the video is disturbing.
Ole Miss taking care of business. pic.twitter.com/JiL9hs2pHz
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) May 3, 2024
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Amid more damning revelations from her soon-to-be released book, embattled South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem will head to Mar-a-Lago this weekend as ex-president Donald Trump auditions potential vice presidential picks in front of high-dollar donors. Noem was also slated to attend a Republican fundraiser in Colorado this weekend but it was canceled over alleged safety concerns after news broke she had bragged about shooting her 14-month old dog.
While Noem’s shooting to death of her wirehaired pointer, Cricket, which she detailed in the book, is still making headlines overnight a new revelation made news: Noem falsely claims in her book she met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
A spokesperson for Noem “seemed to concede that the Kim story was false Thursday night,” and notified her publisher, Politico’s Ryan Lizza reported in his exclusive.
But less noticed appears to be the actual text of Noem’s false story, in which she brands children she ministered in church “little tyrants,” and compared them to the murderous North Korean dictator.
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“Through my tenure on the House Armed Services Committee,” Noem wrote, according to Politico, “I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders. I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”
CNBC reported this week Trump “will mingle with potential vice presidential running mates and wealthy Republican donors at the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat. The meetings are likely to act as informal tryouts for a short list of politicos in the running to join the Trump ticket.”
The list of Republican “special guests” includes U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, and J.D. Vance, Rep. Elise Stefanik, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
Also expected to attend are House Speaker Mike Johnson, U.S. Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Wesley Hunt of Texas, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and other elected Republicans along with RNC co-chair Lara Trump.
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NBC News, which says Rep. Donalds is also under consideration, on Friday added there will be “a fundraising retreat that could serve as a screening session” for potential vice presidential running mates.
Meanwhile, the Jefferson County, Colorado Republican Party chair announced a fundraising dinner Noem was slated to attend was canceled after threats were made, The Denver Post reports.
“We understood there was a planned organized protest outside of the hotel, led by Progress Now,” Nancy Pallozzi said. “I felt that our event would be negatively impacted, and we could not take the risk that those who made threats would cause physical harm.”
Over the weekend independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke at a fundraiser for a far-right anti-government group in Erie County, New York – a slice of the country that had a large proportion of residents arrested and charged for crimes related to the January 6 insurrection. Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and vaccine denialist, increasingly is embracing the far-right.
“That group, Constitutional Coalition of New York State, has founders who not only have ties to Donald Trump but are also connected to the stop-the-steal movement through their activist network, which includes groups that had a presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” The Daily Beast reported Friday. “It’s yet another instance of Kennedy—who is mounting one of the most well-funded third-party presidential threats in decades—serving as a peculiar bridge between his own anti-establishment movement and Trump’s.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center includes the Constitutional Coalition of New York State (CCNYS) on its page of anti-government groups. Political Research Associates, which detailed the high proportion of January 6 residents arrested and charged, included the Constitutional Coalition of New York State in its February report on “The Rise of the Far Right in Western New York.”
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“If you don’t think the government is lying to you, you’re not paying attention,” Kennedy told attendees at the CCNYS fundraiser, The Buffalo News reports.
“CCNYS founders Nick and Nancie Orticelli are also affiliated with the Watchmen, a nearby militia who Nick has encouraged his social media followers to join. The Watchmen had several members at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and one member, Pete Harding, is still facing charges for violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” The Daily Beast noted. “Nancie Orticelli has also hosted the Watchmen’s founder, Charles Pellien, on her weekly radio show on several occasions.”
One of Kennedy’s goals in traveling to New York was to get on the ballot for the November presidential election. Various polls show him taking votes from both President Joe Biden and ex-president Donald Trump, but Kennedy currently has only qualified to be on the ballot in three states, Utah, Michigan and Hawaii, the newspaper reported.
But The Washington Post on Thursday reported The American Independent Party of California, which has a history of “far-right ties,” and “backed segregationist and former Alabama governor George Wallace in 1968, nominated Kennedy for president.”
Kennedy “said this week that he has qualified to be on the ballot in California and will accept the nomination of the American Independent Party, which has a history of associating itself with far-right figures and individuals who have expressed racist views.”
Some news reports and RFK Jr. himself say the Trump campaign was actively courting Kennedy, attempting to convince him to consider being the ex-president’s 2024 vice presidential running mate.
“That MAGA dalliance with Kennedy could be coming back to bite the Trump campaign, some Republicans close to the former president worry,” The Daily Beast also reported.
“’They can only blame themselves,’ a Trump-aligned strategist told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations about the risk Kennedy poses, ‘because they cozied up to him and thought it was funny.’”
Watch WIVBTV’s report on Kennedy’s trip to New York below or at this link.
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Congressman Pummeled for Praising Students Mocking Black Protester With Monkey Sounds
Noem Heads to Mar-a-Lago After Branding Kids She Ministered in Church ‘Little Tyrants’
RFK Jr., Embracing Far-Right, Spoke at Fundraiser for Anti-Government Group With J6 Ties
Election Denialism Embraced by ‘Large Proportion’ of Trump’s Followers: Report
Trump Won’t Commit to Accepting Election Results if He Doesn’t Win State He Falsely Claims He Won
News2 days agoCongressman Pummeled for Praising Students Mocking Black Protester With Monkey Sounds
News3 days agoElection Denialism Embraced by ‘Large Proportion’ of Trump’s Followers: Report
News2 days agoNoem Heads to Mar-a-Lago After Branding Kids She Ministered in Church ‘Little Tyrants’
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