This is What Siding with Victims Looks Like

Stephen Prothero has it pretty much summed up over at CNN’s Belief Blog today:

“Far too often, Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals have identified not with abused children but with their “band of brothers,” their fellow priests.

In the case of the sex crimes committed by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, officials at Penn State also looked the other way.

They must be credited, however, with commissioning a no-holds-barred investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report (PDF) concluded that Penn State officials engaged in a cover-up that allowed Sandusky’s sexual assaults on children to continue for years.

They should also be applauded for removing a statue of head coach Joe Paterno, who for far too long was revered as a demigod at Penn State.

On Monday, however, the NCAA took the higher road. In a shocking departure from the foot-dragging in Rome, it sided quickly and definitively with the victims.”

I know that a lot of people think the sanctions are too harsh.  That they will end up harming the innocent marching band member (hey, I was one of them in high school), that the local businesses will suffer, that players who did nothing wrong are missing opportunities they earned.

It seems to me, though, that most of the reasons I’ve heard people give for not sanctioning Penn State severely sound eerily similar to those given for not reporting Sandusky in the first place.

But it’s about culture.  It is with the Catholic sex abuse stories, and it is with Penn State.  The perpetrators are only the beginning of the problems that need to be addressed.

As my friend Katie put it,

“You know you’ve lost your moral high ground when college sports have higher levels of accountability than you.”