Where did corporate governance at Penn State go wrong? As top university officials concealed information about child abuse committed by former football coach Jerry Sandusky—who was convicted on 45 counts of criminal charges last month—the university’s Board of Trustees failed in its oversight functions, producing an environment that allowed officials to dodge the reporting of risks to school trustees, according to an internal investigation led by former FBI director Louis Freeh, which culminated in a 267-page report that was released Thursday.
Freeh and his firm were named as special investigative counsel after Sandusky was arrested last November. The probe into how the university responded to Sandusky’s conduct between 1998 and 2011 also pointed to weaknesses in the university’s compliance function, a president “who discouraged discussion and dissent,” and a “culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community.”
