"At this point I still think the odds of the school being shut down or crippled by the DOE is more likely."

That (the quote) is from John Infante who is the Assistant Director of Compliance at Loyola Marymount University.* "DOE" is the federal Department of Education, which is conducting its own investigation into Penn State. The legal vehicle for the action Mr. Infante refers to is the "Clery Act" which Mr. Infante contrasts with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the governing body of college sports.

The Clery Act requires all American colleges and universities that receive federal student aid to report on-campus crime which Penn State, as Judge Freeh wrote in his report, manifestly did not in the Sandusky rapes. Clery Act violations are punishable by a "civil penalty" of $27,500 per violation which manifestly would not bankrupt Penn State even when multiplied by the number of Sandusky failures-to-report. The Department of Education has ultimate power, according to Infante, to withhold all federal student aid.  In 2009 that amounted to $476 million at Penn State. That might bankrupt the university.

Yesterday Mark** Emmert, president of the NCAA, said in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service that he would not rule out suspension of the Penn State football program and the Chicago Tribune editorialized in favor of suspension. For Penn State people that is the worst imaginable scenario.  The problem for Penn State is that that is the worst imaginable scenario for Penn State people. Penn State is now being investigated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, the United States Department of Justice, the United States Department of Education, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (accreditation).  And the NCAA.  

In a related development the artist removed the halo from over Joe Paterno's head on the campus mural he painted.

*The quote can be found here: http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/07/title-ix-could-lead-to-penn-state-death-penalty/

**Corrected from "Max," July 23.

Image: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," Wizard of Oz (1939)