A significant amount of criticism was directed at Spanier after the release of former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s investigative report on Penn State. Freeh’s investigators were hired by the Penn State Board of Trustees in November to look into university officials’ handling of reports involving Sandusky.

Freeh’s report, which came out on July 12, released numerous emails that investigators concluded were proof of an administrative cover-up or conspiracy to keep reports about Sandusky secret.

In one of the emails, Spanier responds to former athletic director, Tim Curley’s decision to “go the extra mile” and meet with Sandusky before reporting the incident to The Second Mile by telling Curley he thought it was a very “humane” way to handle the situation.

“I think what many people wanted to read into it was that it was humane for us not to turn him in for being a known child predator. But I never, ever heard anything about child abuse or sexual abuse or my antennae raised up enough to even suspect that. So I know that’s been taken out of context, and I suspect that whoever leaked those e-mails wanted them to be taken out of context,” Spanier told The New Yorker.

He also told The New Yorker that he was surprised when he found out that the investigation surrounding Sandusky was about child sex abuse. He said former Penn State General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin did not tell him what the investigation was about. According to The New Yorker, Spanier said he told Baldwin that he would speak with anyone in the grand jury whenever they wanted to speak with him. He said he did not know anything about the testimonies of other Penn State officials, including Curley and former Interim Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz.

During his interview with Jeffery Toobin of The New Yorker, Spanier also said that the late former head football coach Joe Paterno was planning to retire after the 2011 season — of that Spanier said, he is certain.

Spanier said the Penn State Board of Trustees knew that Paterno planned to retire when they made the decision to fire him in November — just three regular-season games before the end of the season.

Spanier said an agreement was drafted by Spanier and Paterno, detailing Paterno’s plan to retire following the end of the football season.