Higher Incompetence

The two stories coming out of  Pennsylvania State University and Florida A&M University only illustrates how screwed up the higher education system in America is.  First came the news via former FBI director Louis Freeh's report that Joe Paterno, the legendary and beloved coach of Penn state's football team, knew about Jerry Sandusky's pedophilia for years and did nothing to stop it, being complicit with others to conceal Sandusky's "activities" from the university's Board of Trustees.  Then just recently, James Ammons stepped down as president of Florida A&M three months earlier than planned over the hazing death of drum major Robert Champion in an effort by the historically black state university to get behind that controversy  Except that Ammons will still receive more than $98,000 in performance bonuses from his last two years in office and will still earn his full $341,000 annual salary while on  "sabbatical." Ammons hopes to rejoin the school as a faculty member.

Just as the Citizens United decision is sure to lead to a campaign finance scandal, the triumph of triviality in American higher learning over its forgotten mission - development of the intellect - led to these sorry affairs.  I won't repeat my earlier tirades about higher education in America here, but it seems to me that if these schools took more interest in their students and in scholarship and less (or no) interest in things like football teams and marching bands - and weren't so quick to care for their bloated administration departments - these issues wouldn't have come to pass and we would not be talking about how these schools failed at practicing the very ethics they're supposed to imbue their students with.

We shouldn't just get rid of  Penn State's football team or Florida A&M's marching band.  We should get rid of their land grants.