On April 12, 1965, Paul Krueger pumped 40 bullets into three fishermen off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas. He was 17.
More than three decades later he was teaching education at Penn State. Last August, after he did not meet his lifetime parole requirements, the media caught wind of Krueger's past. When he was hired at Penn State in 1999, Krueger did not offer any information on his background, and Penn State never bothered to ask.
After the story broke, Penn State rushed to find out the details of the crime and tried to evaluate whether he was fit to be teaching students. The university and Krueger agreed that his past compromised his ability to teach here and he returned to Texas.
Important university officials were scrambling for answers and ways to make sure it never happened again. The university unveiled a plan.
Background checks.
They would allow students and their parents to have piece of mind. They would be the answer to the media when it asked for a solution to the problem. They would be the giant band-aid for this public relations disaster. But now, this policy has come under fire from several departments at Penn State.
And for good reason.
One has to wonder how much thought was put into the original policy. Krueger's past was uncovered in early August. By fall semester, which started two weeks later, Penn State said it would check the background of all potential employees. The original plan submitted all applicants to a background check that included even minor crimes, such as civil disobedience.
To make things even worse, applicants did not have to give written permission for the check. These particular points would be changed soon to make a more public privacy friendly plan, Robert Secor, vice provost for academic affairs, said last week.
It seems like Penn State jumped into background checks following the media frenzy surrounding Krueger without a well constructed plan. Now that Krueger has slipped into the world of old news stories, it seems like Penn State might have just been blinding following popular opinion last fall when it implemented the checks. As great as it sounded in August, background checks may be a bit more painstaking than originally thought.
How far back will the check go? Who decides what crimes are terrible enough to not hire a potentially brilliant professor? How much will this all cost -- figuratively and literally? Also, it is important to note that many background checks would not have uncovered Krueger's past, because it was almost 40 years ago. Is it even financially feasible to search that far into every single prospective professor's past?
However, potential employees also have the right to privacy. Should crimes such as drug possession or bankruptcy be included in the check? The problem is, no one's sure what should discredit future professors.
Background checks will give students and the university peace of mind, but only if implemented properly. We all have a right to know the criminal background of people who are, at least partially, salaried with tax dollars. Students should have known that Krueger was convicted of triple homicide. It would have allowed them to make an informed decision when scheduling. Penn State should have known, too. It could have also made an informed decision to hire a man who murdered three people nearly four decades ago.
Yes, Krueger's life may be altered and his professional image was tarnished, but the costs outweighed the potential good that came from discovering his crimes. It got people talking about background checks.
It's too bad no one asked the important points raised by some departments within the College of Liberal Arts until now. Penn State should publicly unveil its plan to walk the fine line between defending itself and shielding a potential employee's privacy.
A committee of faculty members should be appointed to look into the matter and set forth a detailed plan that is more thought out than the slipshod plan that was cooked up last August.
