re: Can Penn State Sue the NCAA?

I hope they sue the NCAA. That punishment is way too far. Joe Pa is dead, Jerry is in jail, now they should punish the others that knew about the rapes and leave the football program and athletic dept alone.

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Short answer...the NCAA can sanction a university over whatever the member universities agree to. The NCAA is the universities.

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Not so fast. You need to read the link posted by Bobbyray21 above about the NCAA as state actor.

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Right, but it's all moot since Penn State consented to the punishment. The argument was probably raging among the BOT and PSU attorneys when a response was due to the NCAA. Then, they waived the argument. So now all we have to do is wait for another child rape scandal to be covered up by a major university to test the Brentwood case.

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How long were they given to decide whether to consent to the punishment? Like fifteen minutes?

It seems like this all happened pretty damn fast.

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How long were they given to decide whether to consent to the punishment? Like fifteen minutes?

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about a week,,, was kept under wraps,, but the threat of a 4 year ban or being voted out of the NCAA were known threats before the final punishment was decided upon

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I did, and here's a quote from Justice Souter who wrote the court's opinion in the Brentwood Academy vs. TSSAA case. He makes it pretty clear in Brentwood that the NCAA was not considered to be a state actor:

"To be sure, it is not the strict holding in Tarkanian that points to our view of this case, for we found no state action on the part of the NCAA. We could see, on the one hand, that the university had some part in setting the NCAA’s rules, and the Supreme Court of Nevada had gone so far as to hold that the NCAA had been delegated the university’s traditionally exclusive public authority over personnel. Id., at 190. But on the other side, the NCAA’s policies were shaped not by the University of Nevada alone, but by several hundred member institutions, most of them having no connection with Nevada, and exhibiting no color of Nevada law. Id., at 193. Since it was difficult to see the NCAA, not as a collective membership, but as surrogate for the one State, we held the organization’s connection with Nevada too insubstantial to ground a state action claim. Id., at 193, 196.

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1. First of all, I'm not necessarily saying that it is a slam dunk that the NCAA would today be considered a state actor. But it's a possibility, and the NCAA knows this.

2. The Supreme Court doesn't like to explicitly overrule past cases. So in a lot of instances, they will find creative ways to avoid plainly stating that a past case is being overuled, even if for all practical purposes that is what they are doing.

3. In the dissent, they call out Souter for his Tarkanian reference.

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7The majority’s reference to National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179 (1988), as foreshadowing this case, ante, at 8, also
does not support its conclusion. Indeed, the reference to Tarkanian is
ironic because it is not difficult to imagine that application of the
majority’s entwinement test could change the result reached in that
case, so that the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s actions could
be found to be state action given its large number of public institution
members that virtually control the organization.

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4. The four people on the dissent are still on the court.

5. Justice Souter is no longer on the court.

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I feel like the NCAA did what it always does, and honestly all it can do. It is punishing the people who come after, and a lot of people who worked hard and had nothing to do with this.

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I think the NCAA only punished the Penn State program. They explicitly stated they are withholding punishment on any individuals until the criminal process is played out.

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Thanks for a link to a case where the NCAA was told it had the power to enforce its rules. Here it wasn't enforcing its rules, it was punishing wrongdoing not covered by its rules.

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There are numerous ethical by laws that PSU clearly broke during the cover up. Theyhave been posted on this site many times. PSU would have no case. You're wrong.

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There are numerous ethical by laws that PSU clearly broke during the cover up. Theyhave been posted on this site many times. PSU would have no case. You're wrong.

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Those "numerous rules" (read 2) are vague and ambiguous general comments about being ethical, honest and having good sportsmanship. They have never been and were never intended to be applied this way. To pretend that this wasn't an unprecedented extension of oversight and power by the NCAA beyond what is contained in the NCAA's by-laws is not being intellectually honest or using a fair reading of those by-laws. People are happy to ignore that fact because what the officials at PSU did was so reprehensible there is a sense of justice and some retribution that the NCAA's penalties provide. If PSU were dumb enough to go through with trying to challenge this legally, they could make a legitimate argument supported by members from the NCAA's own inner group that the NCAA's actions were outside of the authority it was conferred by the schools.

As soon as you remove PSU from this and insert another situation where those some "numerous by-laws" could be applied to less reprehensible behavior (like a coach publicly lying or lying to a recruit or committing adultery with an employee, etc., etc.), people's opinions change. It is the difference of discussing the theory, concept and precedent set by the NCAA actions apart from the heinousness of the PSU incident and focusing on the justice handed out to PSU.

The family is facing probable suits against JoPa's estate, so they better pay more attention to defending themselves vs filing their own suit. Would be an interesting suit, however: can you imagine how stacked the jury would be in that civil suit??