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Penn State University Board of Trustees member Alvin Clemens announced his resignation Friday, the Associated Press reported, saying that the Board's 2011 decision to fire Joe Paterno represented a "rush to injustice."
"We had no advance notice and little opportunity to discuss and consider the complex issues we faced. After 61 years of exemplary service, coach Paterno was given no chance to respond. That was a mistake," Clemens said in a prepared statement.
"I will always regret that my name is attached to that rush to injustice."
Clemens has served on the Penn State board since 1995, but is one of the plaintiffs in the Paterno family lawsuit seeking to overturn the NCAA's sanctions against the Nittany Lion program, sanctions that included the vacation of 111 of Paterno's wins at Penn State.
"In joining the Paterno family and others in their suit against the NCAA, I have distanced myself from the board on this issue," Clemens said. "I am determined to reverse all of the misguided sanctions, which were designed to punish a football program without blemish, and were aimed at student-athletes innocent of any wrongdoing."
Clemens also criticized the Board's "tacit acceptance of [the] questionable conclusions" reached by investigator Louis Freeh in his eponymous report, which was used by the NCAA and president Mark Emmert in justifying its sanctions. The Paterno family has been highly critical of Freeh's findings.
Paterno was fired in November 2011, only days after the arrest of his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on charges of child sexual abuse. Sandusky was convicted on more than 40 such counts in June 2012.
