STATE COLLEGE — In a raucous meeting, Pennsylvania State University trustees today defeated a bid to re-open the controversial investigation into how school leaders handled the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

“I believe patience is the order of the day,” said trustee Richard Dandrea, among 17 board members who opposed the move.

Alumni-appointed trustees have been pushing for more than a year for the board to take a stand, and preferably reject, the damning report by former FBI director Louis Freeh that said then Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz conspired to cover up allegations against the former assistant football coach and preserve the university’s reputation.

“We need to defend Penn State,” alumni-elected trustee Anthony Lubrano told board members at the special meeting at the Nittany Lion Inn on Penn State’s main campus. “If not now, then when? If not us, then who?”

But a majority defeated the resolution put forth by alumni elected trustees that would have created a board committee to re-investigate Freeh’s work and conclusions.

Board members said that too much remains unknown about Penn State’s role in Sandusky’s abuse of young boys on and off campus, and that they want to wait for the conclusion of criminal proceedings against former administrators on perjury, conspiracy and other charges. The nine alumni-elected trustees all voted in favor of the motion.

The debate became heated at times and board Chair Keith Masser ejected several members from the packed audience for outbursts, critical of the majority of trustees.

The majority of the board passed another resolution, promising to monitor the criminal cases against former administrators and other relevant proceedings and to take “appropriate action” at their conclusions.

Opponents of the Freeh report have long wanted the board to repudiate it, reopen the investigation, and perhaps wipe clean the blemish on the late football coach Joe Paterno’s legacy, as well as on the careers of other former top administrators.

Freeh in July 2012 released his findings from an investigation commissioned and paid for by the university.