Penn State Football Coach Sexual Scandal: A Case of Gross Negligence - Literature review Example

2 December Penn Football Coach Sexual Scandal: A Case of Gross Negligence Introduction: The Argument A scandal had successfully marred an institution’s established sport component -- its football league. For universities like Penn State, wherein football is considered a unifying culture, this scandal questions their respect to the team of officials behind their favorite sports’ success. It inculcates the trade between moral commitment and repute preservation as well as the university community’s stand.

The culpability brought about by this scandal had ascended from the offender himself -- to the immediate head coach, athletic director and other school officials. With the span of time this sexual abuse had been laid ‘permissible’ within the university grounds, under the ‘supposed’ responsibility and control of the head school officials, and the weight of each evidences supporting the aforementioned conditions, this scandal is undoubtedly a serious case of gross negligence. Gross negligence is the most gruesome level of negligence by which the omission or lack of legal partaking to avoid further harm is committed by a person or persons who have more than the authority to partake such.

The position and hailed moral status of these school officials bound them that expected participation in an incident that requires their moral commitment and decisive action. However, evidences point to the lack of these two and a collective covering-up instead. This cover-up consisted of the unspoken cooperation of not reporting to the University Police or any external police body of the witnessed sexual offense. Furthermore, this lack of action and intended cover-up points outright the school officials’ imbalanced judgment of compromising morals to save the school and sport reputation.

Counter-Argument The basis of this gross negligence is the lack of legal partaking from at least one of the school officials. Looking closely upon the conveyance of the witnessed sexual abuse -- from assistant coach to head coach, head coach to the athletic director, and so forth, the differing and changing use or referral of the phrases, “sexual abuse” or “anal sex” is noteworthy. These phrases have been deduced to “horsing around” -- a phrase that is similar to ‘playing or messing around.

’ This change of relayed information or name for the witnessed incident may have yielded at least two impacts: first, the misconception about the degree of seriousness of the incident and the consequent action prior to this misconception. The misconception may have aroused from the different use of words or the perspective each person had for the used words. “Anal sex” between a man and a boy will spell “sexual abuse;” while the phrase “horsing around,” though done in the shower, is considered playful and non-stigmatic.

Evidently, there is confusion between the school officials as to what really happen and this confusion exhibited reluctance to act. With no conclusion of what happen and the degree of damage thereof, not one of the school officials is expected to report -- this report necessitates certainty to be rendered valid. Unfortunately, none of the school officials were in this state of mind. No one can be sure until investigation (which neither did happen). Apart from the misconception between the school officials, there were factors that proved not conducive for the officials to promptly act.

These factors may include but are not limited to the absence of a reporting system wherein the witness reports the incident to both immediate head and the University Police; a clear moral and legal code of conduct for sexual abuse that educates not just student but the university officials as to how to act or use their autonomy for such cases; ignorance of the probability of sexual abuses within an institution, etc. Conclusion Indeed, there were several factors that may have permitted the negligence of the school officials to promptly act on the witness sexual misconduct.

However, the position and the inherent moral responsibility still have the most significant impact in the avoidance of further harm to the alleged victims. Though misconception or misjudgment about the seriousness of the incident was prevalent among the school officials, there were still a lot of other possible options aside from reluctance or indifference: investigation either by them (officials immediately involved) or by the University Police, inquiry with the victims, or a thorough background check of the coach assistant-perpetrator.

Furthermore, the school officials have not even acknowledged the misconception; none of them expressed the difference between ‘horsing around’ from ‘anal sex.’ Clarification of the terms and what really happen may have open their eyes of the liability they had to those boys more than the liability of having the incident occurred within the university premises. There are a lot of “what if’s” centralizing on the school officials -- if at least one of them chose to act differently, step up and report the crime to the police, that may have a huge difference to the victims’ lives, as well as the university’s reputation.