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Opinion: How Paterno can promote healing
November 14th, 2011
04:34 PM ET

Opinion: How Paterno can promote healing

Editor's note: Jeffrey W. Pollard is past president of the American Board of Counseling Psychology as well as the American Academy of Counseling Psychology. He has 33 years of higher education counseling service, including 29 as a campus counseling center director. He is the executive director of counseling and psychological services at George Mason University, where he is also a professor of psychology.

(CNN) - Victims of child sexual abuse woke up Thursday morning to television broadcasts of angry and violent Penn State students rioting because football coach Joe Paterno had been fired – effectively immediately.

Many of those abused were traumatized and victimized again, as they saw some people put the love of football above high and strict standards for protecting children.

The students' actions, past and future, will inhibit victims of child sexual abuse from coming forward to report their perpetrators. The fear, shame, contempt and loathing that many child sexual abuse victims face from perpetrators' defense attorneys and others, including skeptical or dismissive family members, are on display

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Filed under: Crime & Punishment • Joe Paterno