(Update) Penn State Trustees Won’t Revisit Freeh Report
[Update 2:30 p.m.] Looks like Penn State won’t revisit the Freeh Report, after all.
An alumni trustee’s proposal at Penn State University to revisit the controversial Freeh Report failed by a board of trustees vote of 17-9 today after a contentious near-hour-long debate on the University Park campus.
With the meeting just underway, trustee Anthony Lubrano said members had tried to reach a compromise on the resolution but had failed. “We are just very divided on this issue,” he said.
Mr. Lubrano said the report’s conclusions “damned the university and its culture and certainly harmed our reputation.” He said board members have a fiduciary responsibility to seek out conclusive answers.
[Original] At Penn State, the past is never dead. It’s not even past.
Which is why — more than two years later — the school’s trustees are gathering to discuss the Freeh Report that implicated late football coach Joe Paterno and university administrators in failing to sufficiently pursue or report child-sex allegations against Jerry Sandusky, an assistant football coach, for years before the allegations finally surfaced publicly.
The board will meet in private for about an hour and then have an open discussion.
Alumni board member Anthony Lubrano said Monday he hopes the board will appoint a group to examine the Freeh Report and develop questions, and then bring in Freeh and members of his team to provide answers.
“What we’re saying here is this board has never formally adopted the Freeh report in any fashion,” Lubrano said. “Yes, we’ve implemented the recommendations. But we’ve never formally adopted the Freeh report.
Certainly, as they pertain to the conclusions, I think we have an obligation to have that debate and discussion.”
Paterno died before the Freeh Report was issued, by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. Former president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley are waiting trial on charges they covered up the Sandusky case.
