As a rookie prosecutor in Alexandria, Virginia, I brought my
first cases before an ancient and distinguished judge who at times had a
penchant for the impeccable and brilliant aphorism. One he used when
adjudicating minor traffic cases has stuck with me throughout the years. “The
world is basically divided into two groups. The caught, and the uncaught.”
His meaning was simple: Folks,
we’re all guilty of minor traffic violations. If you’re here, you’re probably
just caught. If not, you’re uncaught, but only for now.
That is the Penn State Community in a nutshell. It is
devastated. It is bewildered. It is ashamed. It is grieving, reflecting,
adjusting and hopefully persevering. But what’s important to remember is that
PSU is not doing these penances because it is unique or alone. Simply put, PSU
is going through these things because its leadership was- to put it bluntly-
caught. They were caught harboring a predator for at least sentimental and
naïve reasons, and at worst for cynical, self-protecting ones. But as the
reality of the sanctions settles and the pain to this remarkable and
time-honored community is fully realized, it’s worth noting a basic and persistent
truth: Predators like Jerry Sandusky are everywhere, and operating- as my
fingers type these words- as efficiently as ever.
Sandusky’s circumstances were mournfully peculiar in that he
was a god-like figure in his environment, backed by the most pervasive and
defining aspect of the culture, Penn State Football. But far below these
uncommon circumstances, predators like him have found havens, and are doing
untold amounts of damage, in academic communities and organized social settings
of all kinds, right this minute. Every venerable, time-honored and values-based
institution has a predator problem. All that separates the exposed from the
unexposed is the machinery of victimization, cloaking as it does- for a time-
the horrors of the abuse and the cries of the abused.
If there is anything positive that can emerge from the deep
sadness permeating PSU, it is not the belief- for other institutions- that
“there but for the grace of God go we.” Rather, it’s the darker and more
terrifying reality of “there we are as well- simply unexposed as such.” This,
while desperately needed, will be the pill tragically un-swallowed by similar
organizations watching events at PSU unfold.
Rather than do what they must, which is to take an
unvarnished look at their own environments and the endless vectors for
infiltration that exist, they will confidently and foolishly distinguish
themselves somehow from Penn State and assure themselves that they “know” the
mentors, coaches and leaders that direct and control their environments.
They’ll fool themselves into believing, for a string of ironically specious
reasons, that their venerable and respected enclaves are simply not the kinds
of places that bad people would seek to infiltrate. Indeed, it is this terrible
dichotomy- predators seeking prey and protection in an environment so
antithetical to what they are- that has foiled so many great institutions blind
to their own weaknesses and tricked into thinking they are somehow above the
invisible but very real laws of osmosis that attract bad actors to good
environments.
Rather than do the difficult but crucial work of
self-examination, rather than seek transparency within their own leadership
structure with the help of outside observers trained to assist in making
best-practice recommendations, they will retreat to a pernicious blind-spot and
convince themselves they are somehow oddly enlightened, even “blessed” with
introspection and unusual clarity- again because of the sanctity of their
mission, whatever it is.
Rather than engage internally in honest, open debate about
whether they have at any time placed the reputation, value and productive
capability of their institutions over the well-being of even the least notable
of the people affected by it, they will delude themselves into believing they
are led by an unassailable and internal moral compass.
And the suffering will continue, until the stone is finally
rolled away and light is allowed to penetrate, wounding the institution that
believed itself protected and impenetrable. But this damage can only follow the
most shameful of all- the destruction of human beings who looked to it for the
opposite of what they received.
