It now appears to be clear that the Penn State Board of Trustees did the right thing two nights ago. I think it will likely become increasingly clear that the “right” thing, was, in this case, only incidental, that they really did the legally-pragmatic thing, that they really should have done the “right” thing a decade ago, and that people at the highest levels knew about all this in 1999. We might be optimistic about the human beings who made the decisions then, or we might not—frankly, whether or not the Board is filled with hypocrites doesn’t make the action any less right. And then some of the students of Penn State proceeded to riot. The qualifier is necessary: The Daily Collegian, Penn State’s student newspaper, has not shrugged the duty of taking their fellow students to task for bringing embarrassment to their university. Nevertheless, I am sure that dozens of Wesleyan students have seen the news and cynically remarked about “football schools” or how weird it is for the Board of Trustees of an institution to be more progressive (or responsible, or what have you) than the student body. Liberal arts institutions like ours, they’ve probably said, are different. But can we really hold ourselves to such a standard? “Oh come now,” you say. “Most students aren’t like that—surely, Wesleyan students aren’t like that.” Maybe. However, in the light of Joe Paterno’s firing, I think we should look back at our own response to claims of sexual misconduct. To my knowledge, there was never a Grand Jury investigation regarding the University’s claims that Beta was unsafe, and comparing “Betagate” to the situation at Penn State would be totally unfair. But we can imagine, can’t we? A situation in which University officials simply turned their eyes away from a situation that didn’t directly involve University personnel or property for up to a dozen years? Would we have wanted to hear them say that it wasn’t their business because it didn’t officially happen on campus? We Wesleyan students didn’t riot when the University stepped in to make themselves responsible, the way Penn State students did on Wednesday. But we certainly protested.