Free Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled by Jennifer Freyd, Pamela Birrell Page A

those who should have been trying to protect them were apparently more focused on protecting the church from any whiff of controversy.
     
The worst hurt is over the fact that, had the diocese acted properly and immediately on the receipt of the first abuse allegations, at least one of the clerics involved would not have continued to be around children.
     
    Research on Institutional Betrayal: Violations of Members' Trust Surrounding Incidents of Sexual Assault
     
    In a recent survey study, Carly Smith and Jennifer Freyd have proposed that the harm of sexual assault may be made much worse by institutional failure to prevent sexual assault or to respond supportively when it occurs. 7. They examined the involvement of institutions (for example, universities, churches, fraternities, or sororities) in events surrounding experiences of sexual assault. In order to conduct this research, Smith and Freyd first had to find a way to measure institutional betrayal. They created the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire (IBQ), which measures institutional betrayal both leading up to a sexual assault and following the assault. Using the IBQ and other measures, the researchers collected self-reports of unwanted sexual experiences, trauma symptoms, and experiences of institutional betrayal in a sample of 345 female college students.
     
    Nearly half of the women (47 percent) reported at least one experience of sexual assault. More than a third of participants reported experiencing some form of institutional betrayal. Of the participants who reported institutional betrayal, nearly half reported still being members of the institution. Perhaps most strikingly, institutional betrayal predicted that trauma symptoms would occur, even after controlling for sexual assault. In other words, women who had reported experiencing institutional betrayal in the context of their unwanted sexual experience reported increased levels of anxiety, sexual trauma–specific symptoms, and problematic sexual functioning. It is clear that institutional betrayal is particularly toxic.
     
    A startling example of institutional betrayal came to light in late 2011, in the case of assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University. Sandusky was convicted of forty-five counts of child sexual abuse that had taken place over a number of years. It became clear that university authorities had known about the abuse and had not reported it. In fact, the special investigative counsel report (known as the Freeh Report), released on July 12, 2012, states the following:
     
Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier [former president of Penn State], Schultz [former Penn State vice president], Paterno [head football coach] and Curley [former athletic director)] never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest. 8.
     
    When Joe Paterno was eventually fired for his role in the cover-up, many people reacted with anger—not at the child abuse but at the firing of Paterno. Even after Paterno's death and the conviction of Sandusky, there are those who support Paterno. One might wonder why people would flock to the side of someone who had colluded with a child molester. Paterno, by his blind eye, had created the context for Sandusky to repeat his acts of abuse on child after child. The initial cover-up of the abuse and the later protests from some people are examples of institutional and societal betrayal blindness.
     
    The denial displayed by the protesters also makes sense from the perspective of avoiding a personal awareness of abuse that might be very close to home. Many at Penn State who were not directly involved in the Sandusky