PSU culture: It is a corporate entity

Don't forget, these are not leaders in the community, they are managers of a corporate entity and the corporate culture requires loyalty at all costs. Corporate survival depends on it.

Not unlike the actions of management of the Catholic church, Penn State management at all levels weigh decisions, not on the ethics of the culture, but on the liabilities to the corporate brand, in spite incongruence with personal ethics. At all levels, when they individually cross that ethical line, the "obstruction" element magnifies the liabilities.