According to a report in Capital Wire, Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey once again refused to dismiss the law suit challenging the validity of a consent decree entered into by Penn State with the NCAA in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
“ ‘[T]he Consent Decree’s validity is the very issue that this Court concluded has far-reaching implications and will not be decided until after a hearing on the disputed factual issues,’ Covey wrote. ‘The NCAA and PSU cannot dismiss themselves from litigation by declaring the Consent Decree valid and simply agreeing to do that which the law already requires’.”…
Covey focused on a key phrase in the consent decree, where the NCAA admitted the Sandusky matter, “while despicable, would ordinarily not be actionable by the NCAA.”
Almost from day one of the publication of the Consent Decree, NewsLanc reported that the NCAA was violating its By Laws and Constitution in presuming to sanction Penn State’s football program for activities extraneous to the football program.
Sandusky had not been associated with the football program for years but, as a faculty member, was entitled to use the field house. The questionable interaction of Sandusky with a youth was reported to the proper authorities at Penn State by head coach Joe Paterno on the first working day after he was told of the incident by an assistant coach who reported witnessing questionable behavior.
Any fault for inaction lay with the administration of Penn State for not reporting the incident to the local authorities. The Sandusky affair had nothing whatsoever to do with the football team or Coach Paterno. The incident just happened to take place in the field house.
NewsLanc maintains that Gov. Tom Corbett’s led the sudden firing of Coach Paterno and acceptance of the Consent Decree as an attempt on his part to distract attention from Corbett’s “slow walking” the Sandusky investigation when he was attorney general.
