9 Penn State trustees urge board to repudiate Freeh, NCAA at special meeting Weds.

All 9 alumni-elected trustees on Penn State's board are calling for an "informative and lively" public session at a special Penn State trustees' meeting that will review and, they hope, repudiate the 2012 NCAA sanctions and fines against their university, at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center, Deans Hall I, on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.

In a letter to "Alumni and Friends," the alumni trustees are inviting mass attendance at the meeting, which they say will review the university's up-til-now "secret" negotiations to update the 2012 Consent Decree with the NCAA. Trustees Chairman Keith Masser scheduled the meeting after the elected alumni trustees called for such a meeting in a letter last week, though it's not clear if Masser was acting in response to their demand. UPDATE: Special meeting was not in response to the trustees' letter, Penn State communications adviser David LaTorre tells me.

In the Consent Decree, according to these trustees, Penn State leaders wrongly "rushed" to accepted responsibility for a sports-oriented culture that allegedly failed to stop former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky from molesting children and agreed to NCAA football program sanctions and $60 million in fines. The elected trustee group. fortified by an April Commonwealth Court ruling they say "questioned the very validity of the Consent Decree" and required its revision, is unanimous that any revised agreement "must terminate the Consent Decree and all sanctions, acknowledge the NCAA's responsiblity for its errors, and return all funds to the University."

That would also imply repudiating the Freeh Report, which the trustees call the basis for the NCAA-Penn State decree and sanctions. The alumni trustees in their letter say the Freeh report was wrongly adopted as the basis for sanctions, both by predecessor Trustees and the NCAA, in a rush to judgement "with no oversight."

The 9 alumni trustees can't force a resolution by pure weight of numbers. Under the rules governing Penn State's complex board, there are also 9 voting Gov. Corbett appointees and cabinet members, 6 members picked by farm groups, and 6 by business groups. These appointed trustees could outvote the elected alumni trustees, if they all stick together.

But by bringing the talks to light, the alumni are clearly working to bring public opinion to their side. "Neither Chariman Masser," a Schuylkill County potato grower, "nor the Legal Subcommittee," headed by Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, "has shared an agenda for this Wednesday's meeting with the elected trustees. As a result, we are a bit in the dark about its proceedings," the alumni trustees complained in their letter.

They warn that PSU general counsel,  Steve Dunham, "negotiated Penn State's surrender to the NCAA in the July 2012 Consent Decree deliberations and he (has) once again positioned himself to manage the negotiations." They add that "key players" among the board's leaders "appear to be more sympathetic to the NCAA's dilemma and less ambitious than elected trustees about restoring Penn State to its pre-Consent Decree culture and excellence."

The NCAA, the letter also says, has repeatedly tried 'to create a false sense of urgency to end its litigation risk" -- and they say they are determined not to let that happen this time. They conclude that Wednesday's meeting will be the first time the full Board will be reviewing its choices on what to do about the NCAA, and by extension the Freeh critique, the Spanier firing and the fines and sanctions.