The Louis Freeh report charges that a number of Penn State officials, including the late Joe Paterno, suppressed information about former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's abusive sexual conduct with young boys and thus enabled Sandusky to continue his depradations. The report shows Paterno to have made some serious errors in judgment and to have been derelict in his moral and legal responsibilities.
This finding has led to calls for the university to disassociate itself of everything that honors Joe Paterno's enormous contribution and all of the good he did there. There are efforts now to have his statue removed from the campus and to rename those buildings that honor him.
Perhaps the university should do that, but there's something about it all that strikes me as both self-righteous and inconsistent. Do we tear down monuments to every person who has done good things because they've been shown to have feet of clay? Shall we rename Washington, D.C. and the Washington monument because George Washington owned slaves? Shall we tear down all the statues of all the Confederate generals in cities all across the South because those generals killed young union soldiers in defense, essentially, of the institution of slavery? Shall we rename J.F.K. airport because Kennedy was a philanderer? Shall we undo all the memorials to Martin Luther King because King was guilty of plagiarism, physical abuse of women, and sexual promiscuity?
Insist that the university take down Paterno's statue and rename the buildings if we think that's appropriate, but don't do it unless we're prepared to do the same with Martin Luther King and all the others as well.
If those men are considered immune to that sort of treatment then we at least need to hear an argument as to how their case is significantly different from Paterno's.
