Punishing Penn State

The NCAA has imposed upon Penn State’s football program a series of punitive sanctions some deem worse than the (so-called) death penalty. The sanctions respond to Penn State’s failure to report and prevent Jerry Sandusky’s sex abuse crimes. We believe that Penn State deserves to be sanctioned, and we agree with the corrective sanctions the NCAA has imposed. But we fear that at least some of the punitive sanctions Penn State has received may be inappropriate.