Penn State: Why doing right thing isn't as easy as it seems
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Evan Ponter, a junior at Penn State, protests Tuesday in front of Old Main on the college campus.
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At least three people knew of a report that a child had been sexually assaulted in the Penn State University football team showers by a well-known, respected and popular former coach of the Nittany Lions in the days after a 2000 incident.
And two years later, no fewer than six people were told of an eyewitness account of a sexual assault involving another child by the same man in the same place, according to court documents.
Still, not one of them -- from a janitor to a graduate assistant to a university president -- went to the police to report what they knew.
From the public perspective over the past week, this apparent moral failing is nothing short of abhorrent. Most people agree there was an obligation to report the abuse of children and that many people, when faced with the same decision, would have made a different, or "right," choice.
But experts say it can't be summed up quite so easily.
Instead, the behavior of those men can be explained, at least in part, by psychological factors or a lack of ethical training at the university level, according to some experts.
"Anyone who thinks that they could not possibly get caught up in this [type of] situation is fooling themselves," said George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. "It's incredibly simplistic to look at this situation and say, 'Penn State is rife with evil and corruption.'
"I don't think the distinction is so clear-cut."
What likely happened, Mr. Loewenstein said, was "a perfect storm for disaster.
"It's all about how even the most ethical, morally upright people -- if they get into a bad situation -- will take actions that violate their own ethical principles," Mr. Loewenstein said.
The allegations last week were startling: that university president Graham Spanier, a sociologist and family therapist, and Joe Paterno, long the face and heart of Penn State football, failed in their duty to act on reports of child sex abuse.
First Published November 13, 2011 12:00 am
