Board: Penn State Will Abide by Sanctions

Penn State’s board of trustees voted today to keep complying with the NCAA consent decree that banished the school to football purgatory for four year.

That decree — which came in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal — deprived the university of some scholarships, banned the team from bowl games for four years, fined the school $60 million, and erased most of Joe Paterno‘s late-career wins from the record book.

The Inquirer reports the vote was 19-8 in favor of sticking to the settlement.

The eight elected alumni trustees who voted all opposed the resolution, splitting from members selected by state government, business and farm groups, who backed the proposal. Trustees divided over whether the proposed settlement resolution went too far in accepting the NCAA sanctions, which the alumni trustees say are based on unproven attacks on former University President Graham Spanier, the late football coach Joe Paterno, and university practices and pro-sports culture as detailed in the scathing Freeh Report, which blamed them for failing to stop ex-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky from abusing children on college property.

A motion to break from the decree and repudiate the Freeh Report did not even make it to a vote.