Penn State faulted on systems to prevent abuse

A report on how Pennsylvania State University handles ethics and misconduct cases, after the Sandusky trial and conviction, concludes that that the system has many failings.

The report, by Spotlight PA and The Centre Daily Times, found that “the system began to unravel … the internal accountability apparatus Penn State constructed has repeatedly failed those it was intended to protect. A decade after the national scandal, Penn State lacks a unified way to track all cases of reported misconduct. Its various compliance offices do not all follow a standardized investigative protocol and do not disclose their findings to the public or to the wider university community. This decentralized structure results in multiple offices applying policies to more than 123,000 students and employees on two dozen campuses across the state with a limited awareness of existing problems—a setup so gnarled it snared Penn State’s signature ethics hub.”

A Penn State statement said, “As a predominantly decentralized, large and complex organization, the university’s mechanisms for responding to reports of wrongdoing and reporting on outcomes of the university’s handling of such reports have grown organically throughout its history as needs have been identified. Following internal and external examinations and audits of the university’s previous practices, new policies, protocols and people have been put into place.”