SI: State of Pennsylvania to file lawsuit against NCAA, challenging the sanctions

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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The State of Pennsylvania is preparing a lawsuit against the NCAA to challenge sanctions levied against Penn State University in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. Penn State, which has been working in concert with the NCAA since the scandal, is not involved in preparing the suit. It is being handled solely by the state.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130101/penn-state-lawsuit/

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
The State of Pennsylvania is preparing a lawsuit against the NCAA to challenge sanctions levied against Penn State University in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. Penn State, which has been working in concert with the NCAA since the scandal, is not involved in preparing the suit. It is being handled solely by the state.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130101/penn-state-lawsuit/

Go Gophers!!
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Looks like somebody's running for re-election.
 

The only thing that the state can do is ban Penn State from being a member of the NCAA.

What people don't understand is that the NCAA is a membership organization, and being a member means accepting punishment that it metes out.
 

I thought it was just the PSU folks who didn't get it, but I guess it's the entire state. They're going to keep PSU known as the Sandusky rape school. Amazing.
 

I was at a NYE party last night with a bunch of Penn Staters...it still amazes me how much denial exists in this state about just how bad this has been.

Im not surprised by this move by the state...it plays well with the public sentiment. Personally, I think the penalties should have been worse and the entire football team should have been shut down for 5 years and PSU forced to start over with all new people and players. But that's just me...I also thought the Catholic church should have hung the hundreds of priests that were molesting young boys and forced to lose their tax advantage status in the US (and I am Catholic). And if it was one of my family...I would have ended the problem with a bullet(s)! Can't imagine a greater sin that stealing the innocence of a child.
 


GopherinPhilly said:
I was at a NYE party last night with a bunch of Penn Staters...it still amazes me how much denial exists in this state about just how bad this has been.

Im not surprised by this move by the state...it plays well with the public sentiment. Personally, I think the penalties should have been worse and the entire football team should have been shut down for 5 years and PSU forced to start over with all new people and players. But that's just me...I also thought the Catholic church should have hung the hundreds of priests that were molesting young boys and forced to lose their tax advantage status in the US (and I am Catholic). And if it was one of my family...I would have ended the problem with a bullet(s)! Can't imagine a greater sin that stealing the innocence of a child.
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The only problem is that the man who stole the innocence of a child is going to rot in prison until he rots in hell. The man who had it reported to him and didn't do anything about it was fired and subsequently died. My biggest gripe about the NCAA is that they come in too late and punish people who didn't do anything. What guilty party would be punished by Penn State not being allowed to play football? The current players weren't involved. The current coaches weren't involved. The students had no idea what was going on. People like to talk about the how it was the whole culture's fault because they put football up on a pedestal, but I think that argument is BS. A few people put their own careers above doing the right thing, but those people have been harshly (and justly) punished. If there had been a secret meeting of season ticket holders where the administration said "hey, there is an evil man who used to be a member of our football staff raping young boys in our showers, so we need to have a vote, either we turn him in and deal with the fallout or we cover this up so we can keep winning football games", there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been a near unanimous vote to turn him in.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
I was at a NYE party last night with a bunch of Penn Staters...it still amazes me how much denial exists in this state about just how bad this has been.

Im not surprised by this move by the state...it plays well with the public sentiment. Personally, I think the penalties should have been worse and the entire football team should have been shut down for 5 years and PSU forced to start over with all new people and players. But that's just me...I also thought the Catholic church should have hung the hundreds of priests that were molesting young boys and forced to lose their tax advantage status in the US (and I am Catholic). And if it was one of my family...I would have ended the problem with a bullet(s)! Can't imagine a greater sin that stealing the innocence of a child.
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Child molesters are everywhere and are in every, EVERY, institution that serves children. It's all about how you identify them and deal with them. The Catholic church covered it up to maintain image. PSU covered it up to maintain image. In the end, taking this tact will destroy you.

Repeatedly lost in all this is that PSU proposed these sanctions to the NCAA and the NCAA accepted. That will cause this suit to be thrown out immediately.
 

highwayman said:
Child molesters are everywhere and are in every, EVERY, institution that serves children. It's all about how you identify them and deal with them. The Catholic church covered it up to maintain image. PSU covered it up to maintain image. In the end, taking this tact will destroy you.

Repeatedly lost in all this is that PSU proposed these sanctions to the NCAA and the NCAA accepted. That will cause this suit to be thrown out immediately.
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This. The e-mails showed that the cover-up was done to protect the football program. That the number one priority for Joe Pa, the A.D. and the President was to keep this all quiet to protect the football program. Punishing the program was certainly the right thing to do. Do some "innocents" get punished?

Yes, but that's not unusal. When Petter rightly went to jail his businesses were hurt. Many of the people who worked in them had nothing to do with the crimes but they were "punished" just the same. When someone goes to jail others who had nothing to do with the crime get punished too.

All players were given the option to leave unhurt. None of the kids had that option.
 

highwayman said:
Child molesters are everywhere and are in every, EVERY, institution that serves children. It's all about how you identify them and deal with them. The Catholic church covered it up to maintain image. PSU covered it up to maintain image. In the end, taking this tact will destroy you.

Repeatedly lost in all this is that PSU proposed these sanctions to the NCAA and the NCAA accepted. That will cause this suit to be thrown out immediately.
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The other choice was the death penalty which the ncaa had already threatened them with.

How many scholarships and sunday masses did the Catholic Church lose?
 



Iceland12 said:
This. The e-mails showed that the cover-up was done to protect the football program. That the number one priority for Joe Pa, the A.D. and the President was to keep this all quiet to protect the football program. Punishing the program was certainly the right thing to do. Do some "innocents" get punished?

Yes, but that's not unusal. When Petter rightly went to jail his businesses were hurt. Many of the people who worked in them had nothing to do with the crimes but they were "punished" just the same. When someone goes to jail others who had nothing to do with the crime get punished too.

All players were given the option to leave unhurt. None of the kids had that option.
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Make that "victims". None of the victims had the option to leave.
 

This whole issue was a criminal issue, not an NCAA rules issue. The courts have and will mete out the appropriate punishments, including to the school as necessary. The NCAA had no business in this matter and greatly overextended its authority here; while doing so on the backing of a single report (the Freeh report). The fact that there was no counterargument allowed to this report by any of the accused is troubling. PA, as a stakeholder in this mess, is right to fight back.

Further, the type of sanctions meted out by the NCAA seem to just be random. I understand somewhat the NCAA's ability to hand out scholarship sanctions, but a $60m fine while specifying how it can and cannot be paid? Two wrongs don't make a right.

A lot is yet to be played out on this issue, and the NCAA jumping the guns on the legal system was not the right thing to do.
 

cncmin said:
This whole issue was a criminal issue,******* not an NCAA rules issue. The courts have and will mete out the appropriate punishments, including to the school as necessary. The NCAA had no business in this matter and greatly overextended its authority here; while doing so on the backing of a single report (the Freeh report). The fact that there was no counterargument allowed to this report by any of the accused is troubling. PA, as a stakeholder in this mess, is right to fight back.

Further, the type of sanctions meted out by the NCAA seem to just be random. I understand somewhat the NCAA's ability to hand out scholarship sanctions, but a $60m fine while specifying how it can and cannot be paid? Two wrongs don't make a right.

A lot is yet to be played out on this issue, and the NCAA jumping the guns on the legal system was not the right thing to do.
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And civil issue. Many estimates are that the school could be assessed well over $100 Million in damages.
 

station19 said:
The other choice was the death penalty which the ncaa had already threatened them with.

How many scholarships and sunday masses did the Catholic Church lose?
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Estimates are that the church has lost over $100 mil plus worldwide in lost donations and lawsuits. I am one that thinks this is paltry and had hoped for more...but the church is very powerful.
 



bleedsmaroonandgold said:
The only problem is that the man who stole the innocence of a child is going to rot in prison until he rots in hell. The man who had it reported to him and didn't do anything about it was fired and subsequently died. My biggest gripe about the NCAA is that they come in too late and punish people who didn't do anything. What guilty party would be punished by Penn State not being allowed to play football? The current players weren't involved. The current coaches weren't involved. The students had no idea what was going on. People like to talk about the how it was the whole culture's fault because they put football up on a pedestal, but I think that argument is BS. A few people put their own careers above doing the right thing, but those people have been harshly (and justly) punished. If there had been a secret meeting of season ticket holders where the administration said "hey, there is an evil man who used to be a member of our football staff raping young boys in our showers, so we need to have a vote, either we turn him in and deal with the fallout or we cover this up so we can keep winning football games", there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been a near unanimous vote to turn him in.
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The only way to end institutional crimes is to punish the institution so severely it creates a memory on future members. This isn't forever (see wall street and gov't) but it can have a long lasting impact. It worked at the U from the cheating scandal and many other NCAA members.

Failure to punish the institution, no matter that the people directly involved are gone, is a recipe for repeat actions. There is no other option and the NCAA did far less than I would have preferred but enough that I am confident that Penn St. wont have something like this happen again anytime soon.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
The only way to end institutional crimes is to punish the institution so severely it creates a memory on future members. This isn't forever (see wall street and gov't) but it can have a long lasting impact. It worked at the U from the cheating scandal and many other NCAA members.

Failure to punish the institution, no matter that the people directly involved are gone, is a recipe for repeat actions. There is no other option and the NCAA did far less than I would have preferred but enough that I am confident that Penn St. wont have something like this happen again anytime soon.
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GiP I sincerely disagree with you on most accounts here. There is no evidence that punishment of institutions of this sort would lead to any lasting impact. You argue that it worked at the U - however, it was a rare occurrence, never before or after occurring. Thus, this argument fails in the statistical sense: no one can properly judge the frequency of another occurrence with or without NCAA sanctions. The same goes for PSU's situation. Ultimately, one can easily argue that sanctions like those against PSU are just as likely to produce the opposite effect: punishments so severe may make it that much more pertinent for individuals to cover up problems.

It's obvious nothing like this will ever happen at Penn State anytime soon again; however, that would be the case both with or without the massive NCAA infractions. Social scorn, jailtime, and the legal system are much bigger deterents to cover-up behavior than fear of NCAA infractions against an institution that one is no longer associated with.

If the courts simply allow the NCAA to enforce the massive fines on PSU, the courts will basically allow the NCAA to become a vigilante legal enforcer, free to enforce whatever they wish on whomever they wish. I don't think this is what Americans should wish for - in the U.S. and in every state we have courts for the purpose of sanctions against crimes; when did the NCAA ever become a legal court with rights to intrude on legal matters of the state? That's why it's important, IMO, for PA to fight this case.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
The only problem is that the man who stole the innocence of a child is going to rot in prison until he rots in hell. The man who had it reported to him and didn't do anything about it was fired and subsequently died. My biggest gripe about the NCAA is that they come in too late and punish people who didn't do anything. What guilty party would be punished by Penn State not being allowed to play football? The current players weren't involved. The current coaches weren't involved. The students had no idea what was going on. People like to talk about the how it was the whole culture's fault because they put football up on a pedestal, but I think that argument is BS. A few people put their own careers above doing the right thing, but those people have been harshly (and justly) punished. If there had been a secret meeting of season ticket holders where the administration said "hey, there is an evil man who used to be a member of our football staff raping young boys in our showers, so we need to have a vote, either we turn him in and deal with the fallout or we cover this up so we can keep winning football games", there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been a near unanimous vote to turn him in.
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My view, too. I'm all for local government and self-government of institutions, but the massive NCAA penalties on people who had nothing to do with the crime, was overkill. Like theft or even murder, this was a police responsibility on the handful of people responsible, not on the entire university community and years and years of players who knew nothing about the transgressions. As with the Indian nicknames, the NCAA has been arrogant and pompous on this one - and unfair.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
My view, too. I'm all for local government and self-government of institutions, but the massive NCAA penalties on people who had nothing to do with the crime, was overkill. Like theft or even murder, this was a police responsibility on the handful of people responsible, not on the entire university community and years and years of players who knew nothing about the transgressions. As with the Indian nicknames, the NCAA has been arrogant and pompous on this one - and unfair.
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What! The players were innocents! What! Is PSU a Disney school, with innocence as a brand! The German people did not all know about genocide, but their entire country was occupied by 4 major powers for the transgressions of the non innocent Germans. OMG, was that soooooo unfair.

Get off your high horse with the whole pompous and arrogance act. You join the frat, you live and die by how individuals behave. Not everybody was a rapist at Delta Kappa Epsilon, but the frat is gone because of two sexual assaults and other infractions. Are you saying DKE should be restored for the acts of a few are holding back the many? I can show how thousands of organizations and innocent "shareholders" get the shaft when the government lays fines on organizations for not playing by the "rules". Shall I start listing this weeks examples, or will that be too many for you!
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
My view, too. I'm all for local government and self-government of institutions, but the massive NCAA penalties on people who had nothing to do with the crime, was overkill. Like theft or even murder, this was a police responsibility on the handful of people responsible, not on the entire university community and years and years of players who knew nothing about the transgressions. As with the Indian nicknames, the NCAA has been arrogant and pompous on this one - and unfair.
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+1. On all counts. Well said
 

GopherinPhilly said:
The only way to end institutional crimes is to punish the institution so severely it creates a memory on future members. This isn't forever (see wall street and gov't) but it can have a long lasting impact. It worked at the U from the cheating scandal and many other NCAA members.

Failure to punish the institution, no matter that the people directly involved are gone, is a recipe for repeat actions. There is no other option and the NCAA did far less than I would have preferred but enough that I am confident that Penn St. wont have something like this happen again anytime soon.
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Right on the mark, Philly. The NCAA is a voluntary organization of like minded educational institutions. Any member or group of members can withdraw from the organization at any time. The NCAA is finally beginning to exercise its power and authority to set the rules for college sports and protect the integrity and reputations of its members as a whole. For far too long it has allowed a relatively few members to abuse the rules with impunity and upset the competitive balance of intercollegiate sports.

The Penn State child abuse scandal is an entirely appropriate exercise of the NCAA's authority. The incidents occurred in the football facilities and the cover-up was intended to protect the reputation of their football program and their long time power coach who was aware of and involved in the cover-up. The great thing about administrative sanctions is that proof beyond reasonable doubt is not required in order to take action against transgressors. The affect of the penalties on players and coaches is relatively minor. The players get to keep their scholarships if they choose to stay at Penn State and the coaches are still receiving their very lucrative salaries.
 

GopherinPhilly is spot on with respect to Penn St. and the Catholic Church (Iceland12 and Dean S make some great points too about the victims). Penn St. created the environment for this mess to happen and tried to cover it up to protect their image and in particular the football program. Whether it is a person or an institution, often times the only way to change their poor behavior is to call them out and make them uncomfortable which typically requires some sort of punishment. Anyone who suggests otherwise is really doing a disservice to the victims many of which were innocent children. I don't know how you put a price tag on a child's innocence but (in my opinion) the punishment for Penn St. did not go far enough in this case. I have a lot of issues with the NCAA but this is not one of them aside from my previous comment that the punishment did not go far enough.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
Estimates are that the church has lost over $100 mil plus worldwide in lost donations and lawsuits. I am one that thinks this is paltry and had hoped for more...but the church is very powerful.
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"The sins involved in its book-keeping are not as vivid or grotesque as those on display in the various sexual-abuse cases that have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far; but the financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution"

http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

If you believe the American Judicial system is inadequate that is your prerogative, however that is a separate issue from whether or not the NCAA should be involved in criminal matters.
 

station19 said:
"The sins involved in its book-keeping are not as vivid or grotesque as those on display in the various sexual-abuse cases that have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far; but the financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution"

http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

If you believe the American Judicial system is inadequate that is your prerogative, however that is a separate issue from whether or not the NCAA should be involved in criminal matters.
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They were not involved in a criminal matter. They were involved in an institutional control matter. The criminal matter just opened the door to the other.
 

Dean S said:
They were not involved in a criminal matter. They were involved in an institutional control matter. The criminal matter just opened the door to the other.
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Exactly right. Futhermore, the Penn State Board of Trustees pushed the NCAA to rely on the Freeh Report and issue any and all penalties right away. They definitely did not want the NCAA to do their usual two year investigation and then announce the penalties. The BOT approach was to get this matter behind them as quickly as possible. That won't happen now that the State of Pennsylvania has initiated a lawsuit. This is now going to be in the courts and in the news for several more years.
 

Go4Broke, it also took a while (and a change at the top) for the BoT to come around to the idea of getting this done with. For a while after this story broke, they were going to fight this all the way. If they had fought this all the way, the entire university might well have been burned to the ground by multiple sources. The deal just got the NCAA off their back. The US Department of Education still might do it.

Assuming this suit isn't summarily dismissed for lack of standing, suing to invalidate a plea bargain (and let's not fool anyone, the deal was a plea bargain) that kept the football program in business is a poor idea.
 

station19 said:
The other choice was the death penalty which the ncaa had already threatened them with.
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But if PSU truly believed that the NCAA did not have the legal authority to punish them over these actions, they should have let them try to apply the death penalty and then sued. A court almost certainly would have stayed any punishment until after a trial (unless the claim was frivolent which I don't think it is, even though I do believe the NCAA had the right). The reality is, PSU read the NCAA charter, realized the generic ethics clause gave the NCAA the authority to punish (or at least that the chances of getting the courts to bar that punishment were slim) and headed off the death penalty by proposing the punishment.

I believe the fact that it was agreed to by PSU will cause PA's suit to fail. Not being a lawyer (I almost spelled it "lowyer" which some might argue is correct :) ), I wouldn't be surprised if it was thrown out because PSU would potentially have to be a co-defendant (since they signed on the agreement) creating a conflict of interest.
 

I think the more PSU and now the state of Pennsylvania talk about this the more it ultimatly hurts them and college football as a whole. This disgusting story that nobody wants to have to talk about or hear details about again. Please Penn St its a terrible situation, can we leave it in the past and not bring it up again.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
But if PSU truly believed that the NCAA did not have the legal authority to punish them over these actions, they should have let them try to apply the death penalty and then sued. A court almost certainly would have stayed any punishment until after a trial (unless the claim was frivolent which I don't think it is, even though I do believe the NCAA had the right). The reality is, PSU read the NCAA charter, realized the generic ethics clause gave the NCAA the authority to punish (or at least that the chances of getting the courts to bar that punishment were slim) and headed off the death penalty by proposing the punishment.

I believe the fact that it was agreed to by PSU will cause PA's suit to fail. Not being a lawyer (I almost spelled it "lowyer" which some might argue is correct :) ), I wouldn't be surprised if it was thrown out because PSU would potentially have to be a co-defendant (since they signed on the agreement) creating a conflict of interest.
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I believe the State of Penn Pennsylvania is the one suing the NCAA, not PSU.
 


GopherinPhilly said:
I was at a NYE party last night with a bunch of Penn Staters...it still amazes me how much denial exists in this state about just how bad this has been.
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The fact that a lot of the fans/locals are still in denial and angry about this, makes me really angry. If you are a fan of a sports team, and you make excuses consiously or subconsiously, for a series of henious crimes and cover ups, you need help. This is why I think the punishment hasn't met the crime yet (for the program).
 

Q: What is Corbett's legal theory?

A: The 43 pages of Corbett's lawsuit are filled with political rhetoric and almost devoid of anything resembling jurisprudence. The only apparent legal theory is based on antitrust laws that govern monopolies that use their powers to fix prices or to manipulate markets. There is, of course, no doubt that the NCAA is a monopoly. It has the power of a cartel and is clearly subject to antitrust scrutiny.

Corbett asserts that the NCAA is using its monopoly powers to restrain one competitor (Penn State) from competing with other member schools, labeling the sanctions a "clumsy attempt to harm a competitive member school." The problem for Corbett is that the NCAA in its punishment of Penn State is doing exactly what its members created it to do. It is not conspiring to manipulate any market. It is, instead, performing the regulatory function that the Division I schools want it to perform

http://espn.go.com/college-football...penn-state-sanctions-little-chance-succeeding
 

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