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SANDUSKY: Decide for yourselves

| October 15, 2021 1:00 AM

Noted scholar and Americanist Frederick Crews has been engaged in a new and important campaign. Crews — who in the past fought the good fights against (a) the use of Freudian concepts in literary analysis, (b) the waxing academic authority of post-modernism’s grand theorists (think Michel Foucault et al.), and (c) the then-unquestioning reliance upon repressed-memory testimony in American courtrooms — has focused his sights this time on Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky.

Sandusky was convicted in 2012 on multiple counts of the sexual abuse of boys in a charitable youth program he founded. Crews argues that Sandusky was innocent of the charges and that his trial and conviction were travesties.

Coming from a lesser source, Crews’ plea for a new Sandusky trial might be easily ignored. Yet Crews’ track record for spotting errancy lends this new effort special credibility and weight. Readers can assess Crews’ brief for Sandusky by googling his provocatively titled article, “Saint Sandusky?”

RON ROIZEN

Wallace