Many of this blog’s readers will know by now about the sex abuse allegations involving a former football coach at Penn State (where I’m a student). If you haven’t heard about it, take a look at this excellent summary of the allegations. You can also read the grand jury report, which first made this whole thing public, at that page, or via the New York Times.

What I find most, um, “interesting” about this is how many of the reactions to the scandal don’t tell you to do just that.

I don’t often talk about ethical issues because they’re messy business, and this story, in particular the role that Joe Paterno plays in it, is a perfect example of why. Paterno is the heart and soul of Penn State. He’s been working at the school for 61 years, helping it grow academically and athletically every step of the way. You can’t argue with the fact that he has done a tremendous amount of good for the university, and the students and alumni are definitely justified in loving him for it. Heck, even though I’m not a football fan in the slightest, I can see the positive impact he’s had on a daily basis, and I hated to see him unceremoniously dumped out on the lawn (so to speak) by the board of trustees.

But because of their devotion to JoePa, many people are letting their emotions do the talking, which tends to lead to incoherent arguments (MOAR YELLING) instead of constructive discussion. To be honest, the contents of the grand jury report is not exactly in his favor. The report isn’t entirely clear, but it does seem that Paterno knew that something fishy was going on under his watch, something that was bad enough to be investigated and prosecuted, and there’s a solid argument that he had a responsibility to make sure the appropriate outside authorities got involved. Yes, he reported it to the people in charge at the university, but they didn’t handle the incident properly. Paterno had a chance to make up for that, and he didn’t.

Still, though, assuming that’s what happened, Coach Paterno isn’t the only one at fault, not by a long shot. I mean, the man didn’t even do anything illegal! Just as he had a responsibility to make sure outside authorities got involved, so did everyone else who knew about the abuse and was in a position of responsibility — from Mike McQueary, the man who witnessed the act, all the way up to the university president, Graham Spanier. I think what bothers me most about this whole episode is the inconsistency of how the punishments have been applied. McQueary still has his job, which strongly suggests that whatever the trustees were thinking, it was not about purging employees who failed to uphold Penn State’s values of integrity and honesty. So why exactly was JoePa fired, then? For all they say about it being “in the best interest of the university,” it kind of feels like a PR stunt. But I can’t be sure.

The bottom line is that these events happened years ago, and a lot of factual evidence is lost to the mists of time and closed-door meetings. While it certainly seems that Sandusky did some horrible things, it’s a lot harder to know for sure who else should have done something about it. I can imagine situations that are compatible with the available evidence in which everybody who was fired should have been fired, and situations in which none of them did anything particularly wrong. There are no obvious conclusions. Granted, a lot of scientific research is like that, but in this case there’s no experiment we can run and no logical argument we can construct to figure out definitively who should be blamed for what.

Thankfully, there are a lot of people who realize that it doesn’t do any good to get carried away pointing fingers. Instead, let’s focus on continuing all the great work that Penn Staters are already doing to build up the reputation of this university. The “we” in “we are Penn State” encompasses 40000 undergrads and 15000 grad students (everyone seems to forget us), plus faculty and staff, at University Park alone, as well as many more at branch campuses all around the state, who want no part of this whole incident even as they stand behind the name of their school. That’s the kind of community I’m proud to be a part of, scandal or not.