On Nov. 11, when thousands of candles pierced the darkness at the campus vigil for the alleged victims in the Jerry Sandusky case, a traditional oil lamp flickered in the daylight 8,000 miles away, in solidarity and grief. For seven years, Penn State, where I was a graduate student and instructor in the history department,

was my home, as much as New Delhi is now.

I arrived at Penn State a few weeks after Sandusky retired. As a new international teaching assistant, I was impressed by the grades of my students Brandon Short and Cordell Mitchell — stars on the football team — and proud that my school’s focus on education ensured that even top athletes excelled academically.

I loved classes, research, teaching and my colleagues.

I remained unaware that a complaint against Sandusky had been investigated and the case closed. Life was good.

Unfortunately, over the years, it became apparent that there was a culture of avoiding complaints to protect the university’s image, especially in the eyes of football fans, donors and Harrisburg.

For example, in 2000-01, students who peacefully protested Penn State’s sluggish response to a series of racist incidents — including a swastika etched on the door of a student’s home and a death threat to Black Caucus president LaKeisha Wolf — at the Blue-White game were arrested. The university then announced a “unity march,” but students demanded that President Graham Spanier talk with Black Caucus leaders.

Spanier addressed the gathering briefly and left, while Wolf pleaded: “President Spanier ... my life is threatened, and you are walking away from me.”

In the following days, in the HUB, there was an Occupy-style protest that came to be known as The Village.

Penn State’s collective memory is short. The Village is forgotten and so, perhaps, are other incidents, including the stifling of protests against sweatshop collegiate products, a sexual abuse complaint against a professor and attempts to unionize graduate and fixed-term employees; and discrimination lawsuits by Jennifer Harris, Constance Matthews, Joan Summy-Long and eight female professors in the College of Medicine.

Students move on, but faculty and staff remain to recognize these patterns. However, you know an institution has a culture of silence when a supposedly radical professor privately says, “You don’t want to be seen as a troublemaker.”

The case of Mitchell Aboulafia, who sued Penn State in 2005-06 claiming he was demoted for investigating sexual harassment complaints against faculty, would make many hesitate to rock the boat. Penn State settled

Aboulafia’s and some other cases out of court.

Cheerleading noble causes makes the university look good. But standing up against a colleague for what is right — a tough test of moral courage — is something Penn State makes tougher. A cover-up of anything that might be bad publicity is not only possible, but likely.

The current crisis is one of Penn State football, college sports generally, sexual abuse prevention and child protection. But we need to learn some broad lessons as an institution. We must find ways to build a culture that makes the difference between tolerating and resisting wrongdoing. Firing Joe Paterno is a start (but Spanier remains a tenured faculty member, and there is no news of any pensions being suspended).

Institutions should value dissent so they can be self-correcting, and transparency allows criticism. Penn State remains immune even after Pennsylvania’s Right-To- Know law was reformed in 2008, so details of its legal expenses and investments are secret. This must end. And the administration, campus and local communities and the local media should foster a sense of institutional history — the good and the bad — so that lessons are not forgotten.

The Nov. 11 vigil showed that Penn Staters are united and compassionate. Ensuring justice is more difficult, but we are up to it. We are ...!

Uma Asher, a journalist in New Delhi, studied at Penn State. The views expressed here are her own.