A reason for Penn State's demise

It's already been a few weeks, but the "preference outliers" in support of Penn State are still scratching their heads wondering how this Sandusky abuse scandal could have possibly unfolded over 15 years without any of the countless members of the Penn State football program willing to speak out to end the abuse until now. A potential answer? The bureaucracy of the Penn State athletic department allowed it to. After Mike McQuery witnessed Sandusky abusing a young boy in Penn State athletic facilities in 2002, each subsequent person who was apprised of the situation was able to avoid responsibility and assuage feelings of guilt by passing the buck up another level. The chain of command, and thus the dispersion of accountability follows like this: Grad Assistant McQuery --> Head Coach Paterno --> Athletic Director Curley --> VP Schultz --> President of the University Spanier. Each of these people had a responsibility to report this event to Pennsylvania authorities, each failed, but McQuery still has a job, Paterno and Spanier are unemployed, and Curley and Schultz are facing criminal charges. This is possible because of the different responsibilities of the different levels of command in a bureaucracy and the expectations of accountability that follow these respective roles.

This system exemplifies many of the inherent problems of a bureaucracy that we've discussed. The program has NOT been monitored up until this point; as long as Paterno kept winning, no one wanted to investigate too closely into the suspected allegations. The program is insulated; it functions almost as an elite club that once admitted, members will do anything (including McQuery playing golf alongside Sandusky weeks after witnessing him abuse a child) in order to maintain membership. And, with the exception of winning, there is little incentive for efficiency. Other aspects of running a major department are not the focus, and thus perform inefficiently. There is also no alternative source of information--no one along the chain of command spoke up, there was no way for the information to leak. This combination of bureaucratic elements combined into the perfect storm of passing the blame, ignoring witnesses, and doing the absolute minimum to avoid accountability. Maybe the theory of bureaucracy will help illuminate the confusion and disbelief that myself and all other Penn State fans share.