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Euphemisms and Ethics: A Language-Centered Analysis of Penn State’s Sexual Abuse Scandal

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Abstract

For 15 years, former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky used his Penn State University perquisites to lure young and fatherless boys by offering them special access to one of the most revered football programs in the country. He repeatedly used the football locker room as a space to groom, molest, and rape his victims. In February 2001, an eye-witness alerted Penn State’s top leaders that Sandusky was caught sexually assaulting a young boy in the showers. Instead of taking swift action against Sandusky, leaders began a cover-up that is considered one of the worst scandals in sports history. While public outcry has focused on the leaders’ silence, we focus on the talk that occurred within the organization by key personnel. Drawing from court documents and internal investigative reports, we examine two euphemism clusters that unfolded in the scandal. The first cluster comprises reporting euphemisms, in which personnel used coded language to report the assault up the chain of command. The second cluster comprises responding euphemisms, in which Penn State’s top leaders relied on an innocuous, but patently false, interpretation of earlier euphemisms as a decision-making framework to chart their course of (in)action. We use this case to demonstrate how euphemistic language impairs ethical decision-making, particularly by framing meaning and visibility of acts, encouraging mindless processing of moral considerations, and providing a shield against psychological and material consequences. Further, we argue that euphemism may serve as a disguised retort to critical upward communication in organizations.

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Notes

  1. One of the striking elements of the courtroom testimony was the precise language invoked throughout—ranging from sanitized to graphic. In their questioning of witnesses, attorneys used terms like “sexual conduct,” “body positioning,” “body movement,” “Mr. Sandusky’s genitals touching the boy,” “erect penis,” “insertion,” and “thrusting his groin into a young boy’s rear end.” Some terms were used to present testimony as matter-of-factly as possible; others for dramatic effect. However, it seems most probable that the language used to describe the assaults outside the court room was far less precise and somewhere between the two extremes of sanitized and graphic.

  2. As a postscript to the case, Sandusky attempted to use the “horsing around” euphemism as a defense for his actions. When questioned by Bob Costas in an NBC interview, Sandusky defended himself against McQueary’s accusations by saying, “Okay. We were showering and horsing around and he [the boy] actually turned all the showers on and was actually sliding across the floor and we were, as I recall, possibly like snapping a towel and horseplay” (Costas 2011). Of course, this euphemism that sounds innocent enough on the surface takes on a much more insidious meaning when taking into consideration that Victim 4 testified in criminal proceedings that Sandusky would call play fighting and throwing soap suds in the shower, often which occurred as a precursor to a sexual assault, “horsing around” (CC3, p. 53).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, College of Business, Room 375, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Kristen Lucas

  2. Diederich College of Communication, Marquette University, Johnston Hall 423, Milwaukee, WI, 53233, USA

    Jeremy P. Fyke

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  1. Kristen Lucas
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  2. Jeremy P. Fyke
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Correspondence to Kristen Lucas.

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Lucas, K., Fyke, J.P. Euphemisms and Ethics: A Language-Centered Analysis of Penn State’s Sexual Abuse Scandal. J Bus Ethics 122, 551–569 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1777-0

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