To: Penn State Trustees
cc: Alumni networking
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2015/03/20/BNY-Mellon-admits-scheme-to-defraud-clients-will-settle-for-714-million/stories/201503200200?
Although there is no evidence that ex-Trustee Karen Peetz, the one who said Paterno's service was marred while she violated the Board's Standing Orders by accepting the Freeh Report on Penn State's behalf, was involved in this, the ethics she displayed while on the Board are certainly consistent with this kind of behavior by those who were. Maybe BNY Mellon has an inbred culture of taking ethical shortcuts, and Peetz brought that culture with her to Penn State.
Remember that Peetz not only scapegoated Paterno (as shown by Keith Masser's and Kenneth Frazier's depositions in the Corman-NCAA lawsuit), she also lied about Paterno being fired for "failure of leadership" in the Board's statement of March 2012. In other words, the CEO of BNY Mellon is not only on record for scapegoating a subordinate, but then signing on to a knowingly false and (were he still alive) probably defamatory statement that he had been fired for cause. This also applies to every other member of the Board as of March 2012.
Somebody who not only throws a subordinate under the bus in this manner, but then lies about it, is ethically capable of lying to stockholders, employees, customers, suppliers, clients, and other organizational stakeholders. This is not to say that Peetz or her colleagues have done this, but all stepped over the line that shows them capable of doing it. This is why lying is cause for dismissal from the U.S. Military Academy. Somebody who lies about a relatively small matter of substance is ethically capable of doing the same in a situation in which the falsehood can lose battles, and result in letters being written to the families of service members. (The Arthur Miller play "All My Sons" is, in fact, based on a real situation in which a defense contractor's ethical shortcuts resulted in loss of life and equipment during wartime.) In Penn State's case, the ethical shortcuts taken not only by Peetz but every one of her colleagues resulted in enormous financial and reputational damage to the University.
The same goes, of course, for Kenneth "people that look like you who think the O.J. Simpson verdict was correct" Frazier, the same individual who keeps telling the Nittany Lion to shut up and take his Vioxx in the form of the NCAA sanctions and the Freeh Report, Keith Masser, Keith Eckel, and every other Trustee who was a Board member in March 2012, with the sole honorable exception of the Trustee who repudiated his role in these matters. Also recall the Commonwealth Court's opinion that these Trustees, and even new Business & Industry and Agriculture members, were derelict in their fiduciary duty for not challenging the sanctions, and Senator Yudichak's statement that personal agendas rather than a Penn State agenda were driving Board decisions. The latter was emphatically on Keith Masser's watch.
Although Ms. Peetz is entitled to be an Emeritus Trustee because she was Chairwoman (in which capacity she disgraced the entire University by affirming the Freeh Report), I think it would be better to forget that she was ever an alumna of Penn State, much less a member of its Board of Trustees. The same goes, of course, for every other Trustee who brought disgrace on the University.
cc: Alumni networking
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2015/03/20/BNY-Mellon-admits-scheme-to-defraud-clients-will-settle-for-714-million/stories/201503200200?
Although there is no evidence that ex-Trustee Karen Peetz, the one who said Paterno's service was marred while she violated the Board's Standing Orders by accepting the Freeh Report on Penn State's behalf, was involved in this, the ethics she displayed while on the Board are certainly consistent with this kind of behavior by those who were. Maybe BNY Mellon has an inbred culture of taking ethical shortcuts, and Peetz brought that culture with her to Penn State.
Remember that Peetz not only scapegoated Paterno (as shown by Keith Masser's and Kenneth Frazier's depositions in the Corman-NCAA lawsuit), she also lied about Paterno being fired for "failure of leadership" in the Board's statement of March 2012. In other words, the CEO of BNY Mellon is not only on record for scapegoating a subordinate, but then signing on to a knowingly false and (were he still alive) probably defamatory statement that he had been fired for cause. This also applies to every other member of the Board as of March 2012.
Somebody who not only throws a subordinate under the bus in this manner, but then lies about it, is ethically capable of lying to stockholders, employees, customers, suppliers, clients, and other organizational stakeholders. This is not to say that Peetz or her colleagues have done this, but all stepped over the line that shows them capable of doing it. This is why lying is cause for dismissal from the U.S. Military Academy. Somebody who lies about a relatively small matter of substance is ethically capable of doing the same in a situation in which the falsehood can lose battles, and result in letters being written to the families of service members. (The Arthur Miller play "All My Sons" is, in fact, based on a real situation in which a defense contractor's ethical shortcuts resulted in loss of life and equipment during wartime.) In Penn State's case, the ethical shortcuts taken not only by Peetz but every one of her colleagues resulted in enormous financial and reputational damage to the University.
The same goes, of course, for Kenneth "people that look like you who think the O.J. Simpson verdict was correct" Frazier, the same individual who keeps telling the Nittany Lion to shut up and take his Vioxx in the form of the NCAA sanctions and the Freeh Report, Keith Masser, Keith Eckel, and every other Trustee who was a Board member in March 2012, with the sole honorable exception of the Trustee who repudiated his role in these matters. Also recall the Commonwealth Court's opinion that these Trustees, and even new Business & Industry and Agriculture members, were derelict in their fiduciary duty for not challenging the sanctions, and Senator Yudichak's statement that personal agendas rather than a Penn State agenda were driving Board decisions. The latter was emphatically on Keith Masser's watch.
Although Ms. Peetz is entitled to be an Emeritus Trustee because she was Chairwoman (in which capacity she disgraced the entire University by affirming the Freeh Report), I think it would be better to forget that she was ever an alumna of Penn State, much less a member of its Board of Trustees. The same goes, of course, for every other Trustee who brought disgrace on the University.
