Let's say employees of a local construction company commit murder to protect the company reputation. The CEO, CFO, and lead architect all conspire to commit murder and are arrested. Should the local home builders association remove them from their ogranization, even though there is now a new CEO, CFO, and lead architect?
Does the fact that all of their company branding and literature still sings the praises of the old CEO and that there is still a statue of the old CEO outside the company office have any bearing on your decision?
There's a huge diff between removing a company from the local voluntary professional org vs. putting them out of business. The NCAA has arbitrary police and enforcement power yet is free from any standards that they have to meet themselves. What they mainly do is MAX the money for big schools while ensuring that players don't get a nickel for the $billions they generate, not even minimum wage. Why anybody looks to the NCAA for moral and ethical judgments is beyond me.
Frankly, I don't trust the NCAA to show appropriate judgment about this... even if the issues were within their jurisdiction, which I think they are not. Of course, some folks think the NCAA should be able to do anything they damn please and, well, we'll just have to disagree about that if you think they should be do whatever they want.
Bottom line: The NCAA's role is to address academic-athletic standards which are *not* a matter of law, and they have unlimited power in that regard. The crimes at Penn St are matters of the law, both criminal and civil. There's a ton of mixing apples and oranges going on here. Why anybody would prefer the NCAA jump in with both of their arbitrary and very unsupervised feet into what are clearly legal matters is beyond me.
As for how Penn St deals with things like statues and brochures, they need to have a chance to respond. I am not in any way sympathetic to Penn St about this whole tragedy, but IMO the proposals being discussed here are beyond the pale.
Do you think the Catholic Church should be kicked out of whatever inter-faith org's they belong to?
Forget for just a moment the constitutional protection for religion: if not for that protection, do you think the Catholic Church should closed down due to their complicity in virtually identical crimes on the grounds that the Church provided and is still providing cover for child abusers? Or do you think the people involved in both the abusive crimes and the cover-ups should go to jail and the Church should be liable for civil penalties?