PSU's McQueary Being Protected Under Whistleblower Law? No

On Friday, November 11, PSU placed assistant coach Mike McQueary on administrative leave. According to (then) PSU President Graham Spanier, Mr. McQueary was not initially fired due to 1) his status as a Whistleblower; 2) his status as a witness.  I only half-believe President Spanier.

Talk of him remaining employed due to concerns about Whistleblower liability are - well - overblown. It has been 9 years since McQueary "blew the whistle," and he didn't even blow the whistle on a PSU employee, so the Whistleblower Act likely won't apply (the Act applies only to complaints against state employees - Sandusky was not a PSU employee in 2002, when the rape witnessed by McQueary occurred).

Further, the passage of 9 years makes it highly unlikely McQueary could claim PSU retaliated against him due to his report, particularly since they have promoted him since then (thus making it appear that he was in part rewarded for his inaction). Further, if he was to be terminated, it would be based not upon his telling administration about the rape, but because of his moral failure to make any effort to stop it, or to later contact the police himself when he saw nothing was done about it.

Mike McQueary - Seems Capable Enough....

NOTE:  Curious, is it not, that Coach Paterno and PSU President Spanier were recently terminated apparently due to their moral failures but McQueary, the one who could have stopped the rape he eyewitnessed, the one who did nothing for 9 years after he saw that his report of the rape was virtually ignored, remains employed?

NOTE: On November 15, 2011, an e-mail McQueary sent to a friend was published.  In the e-mail, McQueary said he stopped the rape before leaving the locker room.  Another report states that McQueary has sadi that he spoke to the police about the incident.  These statements are contradicted by the Grand Jury report, and by the absence of any records from the police relating to such conversation.  Click Here for our full report on this latest news.

No, I don't think the Whistleblower Law has anything to do with why Mr. McQueary remains employed at PSU.  It likely has to do with the fact that he has information that can drag down PSU and Coach Paterno even further, if that's possible (and it is). 

It is universally known that, when defending civil liability, you keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.  Designating McQueary a "friend" of PSU is likely a stretch (after all, it is his account of what happened in 2002 that led to the Indictment of Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice-President Gary Schultz, as well as the terminations of Coach Paterno and PSU President Graham Spanier), but we may safely assume that McQueary would become all the more threatening to PSU and all concerned if he is fired.

Interested in an in depth analysis of the PSU scandal? Click Here.

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