Spotlight PA, an investigative news group, is suing Penn State because the Penn State Board of Trustees chooses to meet behind closed doors repeatedly.
The lawsuit was filed in December 2023 (https://www.spotlightpa.org/statecollege/2023/12/penn-state-trustees-lawsuit-centre-county-court-open-meetings-sunshine-act/) and dealt with the board’s November 2023 meeting.
“While Spotlight PA has documented potential violations of the open meetings law going back roughly a decade, the statute of limitations meant the organization could only bring its case as it concerned the November trustees meetings,” investigative reporter Wyatt Massey told Frank Report.
“Spotlight amended its complaint with further alleged wrongdoing from the February 2024 trustees meetings. These additional allegations did not include the January 2024 Paterno meetings because of the statute of limitations.”
FR originally reported the lawsuit contained allegations, including a secretive January meeting by Penn State board members, but Wyatt informed us that “These additional allegations did not include the January 2024 Paterno meetings because of the statute of limitations.”
Nevertheless, one of the issues Penn State has been discussing in secret is naming Beaver Stadium’s football field after Joe Paterno.
“The trustees met for hours on Jan. 16 for a ‘briefing’ on the matter — a gathering not previously disclosed to the public — and again Jan. 29 in ‘executive session,’ according to sources” who spoke with Spotlight PA.
“The meetings were held behind closed doors to avoid public discussions on the topic, the sources said,” according to Spotlight PA.
Excluding the public from board meetings violates the state Sunshine Law, which requires government-related bodies to deliberate and vote in public. The state annually provides Penn State with more than $300 million in funding.
Spotlight PA continued in a Feb 15 article:
A Penn State spokesperson wrote of the Jan. 16 gathering that “counsel conducted this privileged informational briefing and no deliberation occurred.” The spokesperson added that trustees discussed “confidential and privileged matters” during their Jan. 29 executive session and that the private meeting was legal under the law’s exemptions.
Discussing whether to name something after a former coach likely does not fall under any of the executive session requirements, said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member.
“The public is entitled to see how decisions are made, not just the final vote,” Melewsky said. “That’s why deliberation is expressly required to be public.”
Neeli Bendaputi, Penn State president
Under Neeli Bendapudi, Penn State’s president, the university seems to have successfully evaded most transparency measures under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law.
Spotlight PA is suing in Centre County court, seeking an injunction that would force Penn State to follow the law for a change.
Keeping Mum
The circumstances surrounding Paterno’s firing in 2011 undoubtedly make Bendapudi and most of the university’s board of trustees squeamish of having this debate in the open.
It was part of the burgeoning Penn State Perjury Scandal – then known as the Penn State Sex Scandal or the Jerry Sandusky Scandal – where eight perjurers – all grown men – when they testified in 2012 – claimed Sandusky abused them when they were teens and preteens and collected millions for their yarns.
Firing Paterno
On November 9, 2011, Penn State Board Chairman John Surma publicly announced the firing of Paterno and was supported by his sycophant trustees. Penn State fired Paterno by phone after 46 years as a coach – and during the season. He was the winningest coach in college football history.
At that time, Sandusky (and hence Paterno) was technically innocent until proven guilty. That did not matter to anyone. The firing of the legendary coach put the imprimatur of guilt on Sandusky and Paterno.
Paterno died two months later at age 85.
Penn State Chairman John Surma could barely contain his glee over the firing of Joe Paterno, a man he had hated for years.
Paterno was fired in 2011 for his alleged mishandling of a child sex abuse allegation in 2002.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General alleged that nine years earlier, a graduate assistant and former football player, Mike McQueary, told Paterno that he saw Sandusky raping an unknown 10-year-old boy in the Penn State shower room.
The way the prosecutors told it was that McQueary, who is 6’5″ and then 27 years old, ran away in utter cowardice, and did nothing to stop the 57-year-old naked Sandusky rape the little boy in the shower.
Allegedly, McQueary went to Paterno the next day to report it, and Paterno did nothing other than talk about it with his superiors.
(The prosecutors later changed the date from 2002 to Feb. 9, 2001. They further claimed they did not know who the boy was. He never came forward at the trial. McQueary also changed his story so many times the Sandusky jury did not know what to believe. They acquitted Sandusky on the only charge that involved Paterno.)
After Paterno’s death in January 2012, three university officials, including former Penn State President Graham Spanier, served short jail sentences on child endangerment charges. All were based on the bogus McQueary story.
Why Now Paterno?
Many at Penn State and the Commonwealth continue to admire Paterno, who brought two national championships to Happy Valley.
Typical know-nothing media report at the time
Joe Paterno led the Penn State Nittany Lions for nearly half a century, becoming the most victorious coach in major college football history with 409 wins. He was known for his emphasis on both athletic excellence and academic success among his players.
His admirers had generously donated to the university. Many stopped donating after Paterno was fired.
Know-Nothing Media
A certain local PA newspaper, whose reporters and editors know nothing about the facts of the Sandusky case, and are more interested in the Sunshine Law, thinks the lack of transparency at Penn State is about “the great toll that secrecy at Penn State has already taken on Sandusky’s victims, the university and Paterno’s legacy.”
The so-called victims…
Sandusky had no victims. He was the victim of a brace of liars (above) who cashed in for millions.
Reverend Knows Better
Reverend Joe Stains wrote a rebuttal to the media’s biased reporting on Sandusky. He referred to this matter in reply to the Scranton Times-Tribune, “Stop keeping secrets—publicly debate proposed Paterno honor.”
His rebuttal was published in the dailies in Johnstown, Altoona, and Sunbury, PA.
Paterno Discussion Needs Sunlight
Rev. Joseph Stains
Rev. Stains wrote:
Should naming Penn State University’s field after Joe Paterno be publicly debated? Absolutely.
Advocates have no reason to balk about this. The record shows that as soon as Paterno was told about the Jerry Sandusky shower episode, he contacted university authorities, and left it in their hands.
The newest NCAA requirements, revised in response to the Sandusky affair, require anyone suspecting sexual abuse to report it promptly to university officers and stop there, lest they be accused of tampering with the outcome.
Paterno’s actions were a model of the revised guidelines.
The shower episode was grounds for party-line condemnation of Paterno for egregious mishandling of allegations against Sandusky.
Yet the episode itself now appears to be a paper tiger.
On the night of the episode, eyewitness Mike McQueary was quizzed by mandated reporter Dr. Jonathan Dranov, who three times asked him if he saw anything sexual. Three times, McQueary said, “No.”
Dranov testified in court to this. The media didn’t report it.
At Paterno’s funeral, Franco Harris asked McQueary if he saw anything sexual in the shower.
McQueary said, “No.”
Harris recorded this in his podcast “Upon Further Review.” Again, there is no media coverage.
After the grand jury’s record was (illegally) leaked to the press, McQueary protested he was misquoted in the leak.
Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach told Mike McQueary that he had to keep quiet about the lie of him seeing a rape, then running away.
Prosecutor Jonelle Eshbach replied by email: “I know a lot of this stuff is incorrect, and it is hard not to respond. But you can’t.”
Candidates for egregious mishandling might include McQueary or Eshbach, but not Paterno.
I write to Spotlight PA
In light of this, I wrote to Spotlight PA reporter Wyatt Massey, who has been reporting on Penn State.
I wrote:
I have reported on the Jerry Sandusky case and have ample evidence of his innocence, not only on the fictitious charge of the rape of a 10-year-old boy in the shower room at Penn State (which was the basis of Paterno’s firing and of which charges the jury acquitted Sandusky), but also his factual innocence on all charges.
I believe some Penn State trustees privately know this, but fear public discussion. One brave trustee, Anthony Lubrano, is unafraid to tell the truth that Sandusky is innocent.
In the case of Penn State’s recent secrecy regarding “Paterno Field”, the growing evidence of Sandusky’s innocence may be a factor in keeping it quiet, even more than Sandusky’s “guilt” resurfacing.
The issue is that an innocent man is in prison. Penn State helped put him there, and as it went down in 2011-12, Penn State had a shocking lack of respect for due process – particularly the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” – and a more than immoderately inordinate lack of gratitude toward Paterno’s service to the institution.
The current motive of some at Penn State to revisit honoring Paterno – after his death – while they evidently dishonored him during the last months of his life – and name a field after him is not entirely generous.
Some want to name the field so that they can reactivate Paterno supporter-donors who stopped donating because of Penn State’s treatment of a man who helped build the institution, and others, seeing donations down, want to trot out his widow, Sue Paterno, for fund-raising.
Except for Lubrano, they forget Sandusky is still in prison and seemingly have little intellectual curiosity to investigate the possibility that Sandusky is innocent.
However, anyone who spent a little time investigating the evidence may well realize what I have: this should be called the Penn State Perjury Scandal, not the Penn State Sex Scandal. As Dr. Frederick Crews said – “the truth about Jerry Sandusky is exactly the opposite of what the public believes.”
Perhaps the Penn State Board is wise to meet in private so they don’t have to face any inquiries that could arise with Paterno discussions regarding the institution’s role in sending an innocent man to prison.
Feel free to quote me. If convenient, call me at 305-783-7083.
The evidence shows that Jerry Sandusky is innocent, but who will study the evidence?
As Rev. Stains said, “No wonder Penn State prefers no public debate.”
