Content Warning: This story involves allegations of sexual harassment and may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.
Michigan State has provided Mel Tucker with written notice of its intent to terminate his contract for cause, Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller announced Monday. The news comes as Michigan State investigates sexual harassment allegations against the football coach.
“This notification process is required under its existing contract,” Haller said in a statement. “The notice gives Tucker seven calendar days to respond and present reasons to me and the Acting President why he should not be terminated for cause.”
If Tucker does not present to the school reasons why he should not be terminated within seven days, he will be terminated on September 26. The school’s investigation will continue regardless of Tucker’s participation in the upcoming hearing or his employment status. Tucker could lose more than $70 million on his $95 million contract.
The school said Tucker’s “acknowledged behavior” violated the terms of his contract, which required him to behave professionally and ethically at all times. MSU also said Tucker engaged in conduct “that constitutes moral turpitude or that, in the reasonable opinion of the university, would tend to arouse public disrespect, contempt or ridicule” at towards the school.
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Timeline of Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Mel Tucker, MSU Investigation
The sexual harassment allegations were made public in an article published by USA Today on September 9. According to USA Today, Brenda Tracy – a rape survivor and activist – accused Tucker of making sexual comments and masturbating during a phone call with her in April. 2022 after the two developed a professional relationship through his advocacy work. Tracy filed a complaint against Tucker with the school’s Title IX office in December, and MSU hired an outside Title IX attorney to investigate.
The attorney submitted his report July 25, according to Haller, and Tucker is scheduled to hold a hearing to determine whether he violated school policy. That hearing is scheduled for Oct. 5-6, when the football team has a bye week. Haller publicly stated that he became aware of the investigation in late December.
After the allegations became public, the state of Michigan suspended Tucker without pay.
A day after being suspended, Tucker denied Tracy’s allegations, calling them “completely false.” He said Tracy “initiated the discussion that evening, sent me a provocative photo of the two of us together, suggested what she might look like without clothes and never in the 36 minutes did she object to in any way, let alone hung up the phone. .”
Tucker argued that it wasn’t until four months after the call that Tracy told anyone she was offended. During this period, he claimed she gave him “every indication that everything was fine”, including texting him on Father’s Day and repeatedly expressing her desire to return to college , according to its press release.
After meeting and bringing Tracy to campus in 2021, Tucker said he and Tracy developed a personal relationship “that blossomed into an intimate, adult relationship” that involved dozens of calls over the course of the fall 2021 and the winter of 2022, a period when Tucker had been separated from his wife.
Tracy, who survived a gang rape by college football players in 1998, visits campuses to raise awareness about sexual assault through an activism platform called Set the Expectation. Michigan State named Tracy an honorary captain for a 2022 spring game.
On September 12, Tracy said in a letter released through her attorney that she did not intend to publicly disclose her identity while the investigation was ongoing and had only agreed that USA Today published his story before the investigation was completed, after his name was released. local media.
USA Today said Tracy agreed to be identified in her story and share more than 1,200 pages of documents about the case. USA Today added that it generally does not identify people who allege sexual harassment.
Michigan State is notorious for its missteps in handling sexual abuse accusations against disgraced former USA Gymnastics campus doctor Larry Nassar. Nassar sexually abused more than 300 gymnasts; he pleaded guilty in 2018 to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct and was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. The school’s president at the time, Lou Anna K. Simon, resigned amid the scandal, but the criminal charges against Simon were dropped. Athletic director Mark Hollis also resigned during this period. It was never alleged that Hollis knew Nassar, but a 2018 ESPN report described a pattern of sexual assault issues within MSU athletics.
Michigan State hired Tucker away from Colorado in February 2020. In November 2021, he signed a 10-year contract extension worth $95 million amid an 11-2 run. The 51-year-old’s contract extends through the 2031 season, unless he is terminated for specific causes: materially breaching his contract, being convicted of a felony and engaging in “any conduct which constitutes moral turpitude.”
Tucker is 19-14 years as a head coach. Two backers, including the Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Mat Ishbia, are paying $24 million of the contract; the school pays $71 million.
Why Michigan State Has Started the Layoff Process Now
Michigan State had several potential paths forward following the explosive USA Today report. He could have waited for the grievance process to conclude or went after Tucker for violating the terms of his contract. The latter is the path MSU has decided to take — and it allows the school to move forward much more quickly. Otherwise, we would have had to wait for the October hearing and then a final written decision, which could have taken another month. That determination could have helped the school fire Tucker for cause, but it would have taken much longer.
MSU clearly believes it has enough evidence to fire Tucker for cause, based on his own admitted behavior, without waiting to find out whether he violated the school’s sexual misconduct policy. The hearing will take place even if Tucker is fired by then and with or without his participation, because it’s important that the process reaches a conclusion, Title IX experts told me. Otherwise, if investigations like this were shut down the second a university employee was fired, there would be no official record of the bad behavior. For situations involving lesser-known figures than the football coach, this could pose a huge problem; another university might hire a professor with a history of sexual misconduct without knowing it. — Auerbach
If Tucker is fired, who could fill the position?
Because it’s September, Michigan State will have time to sample and gauge interest. When Tucker was hired, it was a mad rush around signing day in February and the timing sidetracked some potential hires. This time around, potential names to watch could include Kansas State coach Chris Klieman, Kansas coach Lance Leipold, Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis, Duke coach Mike Elko, Iowa State coach Matt Campbell and Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith, among others.
This is a Big Ten job that has a lot of resources and a program that has played in four CFP/NY6/BCS games since 2013, so it will attract a lot of interest.
This will be the first time that Haller has hired a footballer. He recently hired new hockey and women’s basketball coaches, and the hiring of Adam Nightengale quickly transformed that program in a year. This will also be MSU’s first football coaching hire at a more regular pace in the fall since Mark Dantonio was hired in late 2006. — Vannini
(Photo: Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
