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I have a few bones to pick about some of the reaction to the mushrooming Penn State University sex-abuse scandal. But first, a quick summary for the uninformed. According to a grand jury presentment, Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant of the college football team and now an assistant coach, saw Jerry Sandusky, a longtime former assistant coach and PSU booster, sodomize a 10-year-old boy in a school shower in 2002. He informed legendary coach Joe Paterno, who acknowledged this week he was told that the incident involved fondling of a sexual nature. Paterno alerted Tim Curley, the athl…

Both are managed by male dominated-hierarchies. Both are revered by millions of people. And both allegedly dealt with accusations of sexual abuse of children internally, without going to law enforcement authorities.To many victims’ advocates, commentators and others, the parallels between this week’s allegations about how Penn State dealt with reports of sex abuse and decade-old revelations about sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church are uncanny. “It is really a striking and almost identical factual pattern that has emerged in the Catholic Church cases and at Penn State,” says Jeff…

In addition to severe reputational damage, Pennsylvania State University faces the prospect of huge financial exposure from lawsuits by sexual-abuse victims who can credibly charge the university had ample warning that its former assistant football coach preyed on children but did little or nothing to stop it, say trial lawyers who have been following the case. Particularly troubling for the university, at least from a legal liability standpoint, is that the broad parameters of a civil case already are being vividly laid out by state Attorney General Linda Kelly. She has charged athletic dir…

This is not about Joe Paterno.

If these boys really were molested, groped and raped by a middle-aged ex-Penn State football coach, then whatever misjudgment Paterno made will be a single lit match compared to the bonfire these boys will walk in for years to come.

If, as many people believe, the institution that is the Catholic Church should be held legally responsible for the child sexual abuse crimes perpetrated by its priests and the subsequent cover up of the worldwide scandal by their superiors, then shouldn’t Penn State — not to mention football coach Joe Paterno and other top administrators — be held similarly accountable for the alleged crimes committed by longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky?

Report released by the PA Attorney General’s Grand Jury investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky.  

William Mitchell College of Law recently honored Jeffrey R. Anderson ’75 and William M. Orth ’80 at the college’s Annual DeParcq Leadership Dinner. The dinner is held in honor of William H. DeParcq ‘30, prominent Minnesota personal injury lawyer who died in 1988, to recognize those who make a difference in the lives of our students, our law school, and our community.

Experts say it’s important for parents to talk openly, honestly and calmly to kids about cases like the Skip ReVille sexual molestation scandal, tailoring the information to the age and maturity of the child. For young children, it might be best to describe such situations in general terms, explaining that a bad person touched someone inappropriately in a private place. Older kids might prefer to read newspaper accounts or discuss the incidents in far greater detail. The main point is creating a safe place where children feel comfortable sharing information and feelings, knowing they won’t…

A child sexual abuse case involving a Northern Minnesota child, originally filed in July of 2010 in Federal District Court against Florida-based Gospel Crusades leader Dr. Gerald Derstine, has added the retreat center at which the abuse allegedly occurred as a defendant–a move that requires…