What is most distressing about the Penn State scandal is people’s reactions to it. It’s as though the allegations of child abuse render us all an incoherent mob, lighting our torches, grabbing our pitchforks, heading out at midnight to go confront the monster. My colleague Harve Linder’s article illustrates this point.
I should point out before I go any further that Harve Linder is my Talmud study partner and my colleague. I have the greatest respect for his good heart and his legal acumen. He is in all respects a gentleman and a scholar. I disagree with him on one issue in his article.
He states the rhetorical question: “When the graduate student walked into the shower room and allegedly discovered the horrific acts of the assistant coach, what should he have done?” He concludes that the graduate student’s conduct failed to meet the Torah’s standard of “do not stand idly on your brother’s blood.”
There are other Torah injunctions, however, that should give us pause. There is the warning not to prejudge as situation, as it says: “Do not render an unfair decision…” (Leviticus 19:15)
Moreover, the laws against gossip (loshon hara) are designed to prevent exactly the kind of torch-and-pitchfork rush to judgment that the Penn State case reveals. “Do not raise a false report, says the Torah” (Exodus 23:1), which our Sages explain as a warning “not to receive or listen to evil reports.”
We cannot presume to judge the actions of Mike McQueary, the graduate student who “discovered” the heinous act.
Applying these divine injunctions to the Penn State case, we cannot presume to judge the actions of Mike McQueary, the graduate student who “discovered” the heinous act. Let us assume that the Grand Jury report is authentic. The entire chain of reasoning that leads us to condemn Penn State’s graduate assistant and its entire football coaching staff is based on one supposed fact – that the graduate student walked into the shower room, discovered the horrific acts of the assistant coach and did nothing.
If in fact the graduate student saw rape, then he (Mr. Linder and I agree) had both a moral and a legal obligation to intervene, as well as to report it to the police. At which point, McQueary’s boss – and his boss’s boss, and so on up the line – all had an obligation to report this disgusting and despicable conduct. If they did not, they should (after due process) be thrown in jail.
So if this story is true, why didn’t the graduate either intervene or call the police? And why did the coaching staff and the administration, having (in this version of the narrative) heard a clear report of child rape, not call the police to investigate?
People offer several possible explanations for McQueary’s failure to act, each an indictment of his moral character. It has been suggested that perhaps the graduate student was so cowed by the Paterno mystique that he was unable to bring himself to accuse one of Paterno’s gang. Or that perhaps he was a moral coward. Or perhaps he was afraid of the perpetrator.
But I would like to suggest another explanation. Perhaps what McQueary saw is what most eyewitnesses see: incomplete facts, partial evidence, suspicious but unclear patterns of behavior. That he later testified that he saw clearly identifiable conduct (“rape”) is typical of human beings in general: we weave the patterns together after the fact into a coherent (and sometimes mistaken) explanation. So if he saw conduct that was unclear-but-suspicious, that explains why his report to his boss (and his boss’ report to his boss) were less than a full report of rape.
There are other possible explanations. The administration claims that they didn’t act on child rape because neither McQueary nor the coaching staff ever told them of a rape—only that he saw something upset him. For his part, McQueary now claims that he stopped the assault, and talked with police. We lawyers hear these as self-serving exculpatory statements. Are they true? We can’t know.
I’ve been working in the justice system for 30 years. I’ve prosecuted criminals and I’ve defended them. I’m as jaded about human nature as only a person who works in the justice system can be. But I find it inconceivable that any human being, witnessing what is clearly and unambiguously rape, would fail to at least verbally challenge the conduct (“Hey! What’s going on in there?”) – if not physically intervene. Add the fact that the victim was a 10-year-old boy makes it even more unlikely that a witness to a rape would walk away. Add all of these aggravating factors together – the homosexual rape of a child by an adult – it is beyond our experience that an eyewitness would not physically intervene.
As Occam’s razor and Sherlock Holmes and the Talmud, too, instruct us: The simplest and most likely explanation of human behavior is usually the correct one. At least, it’s the place we start until we know more facts. That simple explanation here is that McQueary did not intervene because he did not clearly see a sexual assault — or, as he now claims, that the initial stories of his conduct were wrong and that he did, in fact, intervene.
None of us knows what happened. We all have our suspicions about who did what to whom, and who did not do enough. But Mr. Linder and I agree on this, too: The Torah demands more of us than prejudgment. It demands that we not judge the moral conduct of the actors without knowing what the actors actually saw and what they actually did. Let’s douse the torches and put down the pitchforks until then.
(12) Bobby5000, July 31, 2017 10:14 PM
people see what they want to see
You see the boss's nephew stealing money, maybe its a mistake or not your business. The natural tendency is for people not to get involved in things that will create problems. Ask the average German, he thought bad things could be happening, but was not sure and thought it was not his or her business to speak up. I recall schools where the disabled or disfavored were regularly tormented but teachers never seemed to notice the obvious.
So not, I don't buy it - "Perhaps what McQueary saw is what most eyewitnesses see: incomplete facts, partial evidence, suspicious but unclear patterns of behavior," And the lesson of the holocaust is that the duty of each person to get involved when he sees evil and not to make the measurement of how will this affect me as the guidepoint.
(11) Bracha, July 24, 2012 1:14 AM
Why would anyone try to defend a perverted, pedifile?
I hear people say that maybe Sandusky didnt do this and that... but its all non sence comming from people who want to feel powerful by playing devils advocate and getting attention by saying crazy things! Sandusky is a very sick man, who abused his own adopted sun, and a homosexual out of control old man! he deserves a lifetime in jail and then hell for the rest of his life!
(10) marc aron, November 23, 2011 12:46 AM
penn state scandal
I am not a lawyer but this article is naive beyond belief. Sandusky was accused way before the shower incident. It goes back to the late 90's and the grad asst is not the problem. paterno and the admin are the reason it went on and not to see this is not to understand penn state. nothing went on there in the last 40 years that paterno did not know. absolutely nothing.
(9) Kathy Lipkin, November 21, 2011 11:48 PM
At the very least...
Even if the graduate student "just" saw a naked adult man in a shower alone with a naked 10 year old boy he was not related to, this is a huge problem.
(8) Ilbert, November 21, 2011 6:17 PM
Lashon Hara
It is precisely in these types of cases that we shouild most careful before we make unsubstanted assertions. I have been an attorney for over 35 years and have learned that people make all types of untrue claims and act on them. Why the University of Pennsylvania did not conduct an investigation before it fired people perplexes me. By the way, where there is smoke, there is smoke to assume there is fire is precisely the problem.
lisa, November 22, 2011 3:50 AM
Mr. Lawyer..... Get your facts right!!
Hello.... The reason the University of Pennsylvania didnt conduct an investigation was because it was not U of P....it's PENN STATE!!!!! And check your chemistry class.....yes...where there is smoke there is fire!!!! And did you know they are talking about kids....young kids....kids with no voice...especially in the 70's.....you my friend are over ruled!!!
(7) lisa, November 21, 2011 12:01 PM
Never douse the tourches....not when kids are involved!!!
Honey...where there is smoke...there is fire!!!
Dan, November 27, 2011 12:39 AM
Or is it?
Unless it's dry ice
(6) Jacque Budd, November 21, 2011 3:36 AM
Astute article----it makes more sense than anything I've heard or seen
The scandal that is going on in the press does not make sense. This makes more sense about what may have happened and what people's responses were.
(5) jan, November 21, 2011 2:36 AM
what!!!!
I am unfamiliar with this event, so will only comment on what i just read. If a rape is witnessed, a person might be sort of paralyzed by fear of victimized, also it does take a moment to figure out what is going on. Why the police were not called i do not know. What became of this kid? I guess i will have to google search to find out if this is all accusation or if a child was in fact raped as described.
(4) Barbara, November 21, 2011 1:49 AM
Why did heads roll?
Two things: First, it's hard to believe that the president of the university and the most revered person at the university (Paterno) were fired if, indeed, the true story is so completely unknown WE don't know exactly what happened. But apparently some people do know and it cost a few big shots their jobs. Second, what does this writer mean: Perhaps what McQueary saw is what most eyewitnesses see: incomplete facts..."? How do you see a fact, whether it is complete or not? You might see a rape. It would then be a fact that you saw a rape. But I don't quite know how you see a fact.
(3) chani, November 20, 2011 8:09 PM
Whether or not we get the facts right, we still can use this tragedy to ask ourselves if we are truly doing better than the insular Penn State community.
Anonymous, November 22, 2011 3:58 AM
Great question......!!!!!
Maybe we can all learn from this......
(2) Samuel A. Abady, November 20, 2011 3:19 PM
Respectfully, I Strongly Disagree
McCreary testified to the grand jury as follows. On March 1, 2002, at 9:30 P.M., he was putting sneakers in his locker in the Lasch Football Building when he heard a "slap slap" sound and followed the sound to the shower. There, he witnessed Sandusky engaged in anal intercourse with a boy about ten pinned against the shower wall, his hands splayed. What did McCreary do? Distraught, he called his father who told him to leave the building and come home. The next morning, McCreary called Paterno, then met with him, and described what he saw. A week and a half later, he described what he saw to Athletic Director Tim Curley and Penn State V.P. Gary Schultz. McCreary did not enter the shower and pull Sandusky off the boy; call the police; and take the boy to the hospital. Mr. Elbein offers an epistemological defense: perception is often not reliable. True in some cases. In this case, however, there is no reason to believe McCreary's hearing or vision were obstructed or impaired. The law of justification is clear: had McCreary entered the shower, wrestled Sandusky away from the boy, and in the process, killed him, it would have been a justifiable homicide. Mark Steyn approriately describes this as "an almost too perfect snapshot of a culture that simultaneously destroys childhood and infantilizes adulthood. The 'child' in this vignette ought to be the 10-year-old boy, 'hands up against the wall,' but, instead, the 'man' [McCreary] appropriates the child role for himself: Why, the graduate assistant is so 'distraught' that he has to leave and telephone his father." Confronted by a grade-schooler being sodomized before his eyes, McCreary abadoned the child -- if he is to be believed. Hence, either McCreary is a liar, and his detailed statements to the grand jury cannot be believed, or he is a moral coward. Either way, he deserves our condemnation.
Somebody, November 22, 2011 5:09 PM
What really happened?
The media reports of this entire sordid affair defy logic. The grand jury testimony of Mr McCreary as recounted by Mr Abady, is highly troubling. It would be logical his attorney would subsequently want a public statement saying his client (McCreary) DID intervene and notify the police. But, given the testimony at the grand jury led to the indictment of Sandusky and no one else, we have to wonder "Why the university fired Paterno, and just placed McCreary on administrative leave? My twenty-five years in law enforcement tells me it smells like the DA made a deal with McCreary to testify against Sandusky. That is the only way what we have seen so far in this situation makes any sense. As much as I would love to condemn a lot of folks in this mess; and as much as you won't find a stronger advocate than me for the rights of child victims; I am keeping my powder dry.
(1) Billy Kravitz, November 20, 2011 7:39 AM
DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATH WATER ---PENN STATE
what about the honest, innocent students and their tuition paying families, who THOUGHT they were buying into the PENN STATE EXPERIENCE (really a wonderful thing) only to have it denigrated by the media. PENN STATE did not do this. Certain people employed by the university did. I know journalists have space to fill, but that doesn't give them leave to spread the pain. The educational resources are the same. The town and campus remain unbelievably photogenic. Stop running it ALL down. Address WHAT MUST BE ADDRESSED, but don't burn the house to kill the termites.