Banner over Penn State campus: ‘Take the (Joe Paterno) statue down or we will’

As you may have expected, the decision by the Penn State Board of Trustees to leave the Joe Paterno statue standing outside the football field on campus has been met with a great deal of opposition. The photo that you see above was taken over the Penn State campus on Tuesday morning. If you can’t make it out, that is a banner that reads “TAKE THE STATUE DOWN OR WE WILL.” Time could be ticking for the Board of Trustees.

“Beaver Stadium has called police services in response to the potential threat from the flyover,” PSU intern and PR major Maddy Pryor wrote on Twitter after the banner had been circling the campus.

It was later discovered that the plane flying with the banner is licensed to Air America Aerial Ads of Genoa, Ohio. The group that purchased the banner also taunted Tiger Woods at the 2010 Masters, and was done by a group described as “a bunch of do-gooders.”

The vision of some of the Penn State community may still be clouded by things like money and the school’s reputation, but there are plenty of people who out there who will not rest until the statue comes down. Paterno allegedly covered up for a child molester. At the end of the day, nothing else should matter. The Penn State club where students camp prior to football games already renamed their organization. The Nike Child Development Center in Oregon did the same. The school would be wise to follow suit with the statue. If not, an angry mob could find its way onto campus at some point in the near future.

Photo via @dmech06
H/T The Big Lead