As the onion continues to be peeled on the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal and the Penn State University cover-up spanning more than 10 years, there's a military statute that defines and relates to the type of behavior exhibited by the Board of Trustees and the PSU executive staff.
Dereliction of duty is well defined in the United States Code Title 10892 and specifically relates to one's failure to follow standard operating procedures.
These SOPs are well-documented at PSU for both the Board of Trustees and the executive staff and are supplemented with detailed employee job descriptions, as applicable, defining one's duties and responsibilities.
It's very apparent that these procedures were not followed and represent a dereliction of duty for those in a position of management and authority. However, not following SOPs is not a crime and only through the grand jury investigation did the Sandusky criminal element surface exposing the onion.
Maybe it's time to revisit these standard operating procedures and establish their validity within the civil law statutes. And, I might add, whistle blowers don't have a very good track record for policing the system internally and usually results in one's termination.
Since PSU accepts Pennsylvania taxpayer funding, a civil lawsuit on behalf of all state taxpayers, could be carried forward to rid PSU of personnel who exhibited dereliction of duty.
Frank M. Fedeli
Tyrone
