What’s New
Michigan State University suspended its head football coach, Mel Tucker, on Sunday, less than 24 hours after USA Today published a story detailing a sexual-harassment complaint against him. The charge was filed with the university in December.
A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for early October, but the university said it was suspending Tucker now because the situation had changed.
Tucker was officially suspended for “unprofessional behavior and not living up to the core values of the department and university.”
The Details
Brenda Tracy, a prominent sexual-assault survivor and advocate, filed the complaint with the university, claiming Tucker masturbated while talking on the phone with her in late 2022, USA Today reported. In internal documents shared with the newspaper, Tucker did not deny the incident took place, but said the phone sex was consensual.
Tracy and Tucker met when MSU officials invited Tracy to speak to the football team in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sexual-abuse scandal.
Interim President Teresa Woodruff, Athletic Director Alan Haller, and some MSU board members were aware of the complaint and investigation but not all the details.
“Interim measures were in place, and those interim measures have been updated,” Haller said during a brief news conference Sunday. “Initially, there was no contact with the complainant and then also increased oversight from me of the program, but then also the coach.”
Haller did not answer a question about what information had changed between December and Sunday. Woodruff took no questions.
The investigative “process will not be complete until there is a hearing and a final decision,” Woodruff said during the news conference. “The action AD Haller took comes with the full weight of my support.”
The Backdrop
MSU has a history of sexual-assault scandals, most notably the Nassar case, in which a gymnastics doctor abused athletes for decades under the guise of providing medical treatment. Around the same time, the former dean of the school of College of Osteopathic Medicine was convicted of felony charges of using his power to harass female students. More recently, the dean of the business school was demoted over allegations he didn’t report an accusation of sexual misconduct when he learned of it.
Complaints were filed against Nassar with MSU, but officials cleared him of any wrongdoing before the case broke publicly. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison as part of a plea deal on seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct involving more than 160 girls and women over more than two decades. More athletes and students sued MSU, leading to a $500-million settlement.
MSU pushed out its longtime president, Lou Anna K. Simon, in the scandal’s wake. Her interim replacement, John Engler, was pushed out after saying Nassar survivors were “enjoying” the “spotlight.” Woodruff, another interim, succeeded Samuel L. Stanley Jr., who resigned after clashing with Michigan State’s governing board.
The Stakes
News of yet another scandal about alleged sexual impropriety raises big questions — again — about the way Michigan State is being run. Several Nassar survivors took to X (formerly Twitter) to chastise the university.
“As a Larry Nassar survivor myself, this is still the ‘old’ MSU, no matter how many times the interim president felt the need to say it isn’t,” Kaylee Lorincz wrote in a post Monday morning. “Covering up 6,000 documents, and now this cover up. MSU continues to hurt victims over and over again.”
MSU is searching for a permanent president. Woodruff has said she is not in the running for the position.
