An Open Letter to the Students of Penn State:

Really? Really?

Children were molested. Your precious football coach did nothing, and your response to his getting fired was to riot in support of him?

Where is your integrity?

Where are your priorities?

Where is your perspective?

This should be a black-and-white issue. Raping children is wrong. Discouraging a witness to this atrocity from reporting it to the police, and allowing the child molester continued access to children is wrong.

Your precious football coach had an obligation–not just as the head of a athletic program, not just as a leader, but as a human being, to do everything possible to stop such a crime, and he did as good as nothing.

That is his failing.

You’re so concerned about your football team, and about your university’s image–yet you would riot for a man who allowed a rapist to go free? Who allowed a child molester to continue molesting children, and represent your university? That’s what you want?

You didn’t riot in defense of a beloved football coach. You rioted in favor of the protection and cover-up of child rape.

You are the epitome of the image of spoiled college students with mixed-up priorities.

I am disgusted and humiliated as a recent college graduate to be associated with the likes of you.

College students across the country are protesting for equal rights, against corruption, for increased access to education, against hate, for love for one’s neighbors, and they struggle to be taken seriously by media, by their representatives, by the general populace.

And then there’s you. Rioting. Destroying property. Assaulting police officers. For a football coach that got fired for his leading role in covering up the RAPE OF A CHILD.

It’s clear what your values are. It’s clear what you stand for. It’s clear what your priorities are.

I hope that, in the wake of this violence, chaos, and destruction that you have a change of heart. That you reflect on your actions. That you make amends to the community and the people for what you did, and most importantly, that you come out in support of the victims. I hope that you will come together and make a stand against rapists, predators, and the people who enable them.

The university is a place of learning. It is a place to share knowledge, and discover new things, for the betterment of ourselves and our society. Contrary to what many think, and how many universities conduct themselves, it is NOT an institution to support athletics. That you, the student body, would resort to violence and destruction in retaliation for the firing of an athletic coach who abetted A RAPIST, demonstrates your lack of understanding about so many things, one of which is the purpose of a university.

Your rabid, obsessive defense of him demonstrates to rape survivors all over the world that you think their suffering isn’t important. It’s silencing. I wonder, in your haste to destroy, did you even think about the message you’re sending to victims everywhere?

Naturally, no.

I’m disgusted and disappointed in you.

You should know better.