It's a "kapow" right between the eyes. A clean shot in the kisser.
Perspective, I gained, when I read of the shame my alma mater, Eastern Michigan University, has brought upon every student who's ever attended that school in Ypsilanti. I used to think embarrassment from a bad football team was all it took to make one ashamed of his institution of higher learning.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
REAL shame and embarrassment is being from a school that is now facing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, a possible loss of federal funding, and a forever tarnished reputation.
In case you haven't been following it, EMU's higher ups allegedly involved themselves in a conspiracy of secrecy revolving around the murder of one of their female students last December. Reader's Digest version: the death was intentionally misreported as mysterious and one that didn't involve foul play, when school officials knew better. Weeks later, a fellow student was arrested and charged with the murder, which occurred in an on-campus dorm.
An independent investigation revealed that EMU's president, John Fallon (who should resign yesterday, if not sooner) knew details of the crime that he intentionally (or at the very least with incompetency) withheld from the student body. Other officials were accused of even resorting to shredding of police documents, ostensibly to keep the fact that a student was MURDERED hush-hush.
If that's not bad enough, a federal investigation is saying that on many occasions since 2003, EMU has under-reported such things as sexual assault and other violent crimes. There seems to be, the investigation suggests, a disturbing trend at EMU -- a trend of putting its students into false senses of security. Doubtless school officials will, if backed into a corner, plead that they didn't want to unnecessarily panic their student population. It's a defense that should be dismissed forthright and dealt with harshly.
The university has been found to be in multiple violations of the Clery Act, which was set up nationally to provide some sort of checks and balances for colleges and universities to report and act on crimes occuring on their campuses. The violations are putting such things as Pell Grants and other federal subsidies in jeopardy. Plus, the fines. Each violation of the Clery Act, it's been reported, is a $27,500 fine.
I know this isn't about sports today, per se, except to reiterate that no harm that came from a seemingly endless football losing streak from 1979-1982, or from almost being kicked out of the MAC in 1983, can compare with the smudge that's been indelibly made on EMU's face this week.
President Fallon must go -- his reputation, too, permanently tarnished for allowing such ridiculous goings-on to occur on his watch. I would hope that his leaving turns out to be a no-brainer.
They obviously are pretty good at those, it seems, at EMU.
I'm not proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment