MSU investigation finds Mel Tucker violated sexual harassment policy. What happens next?

Former Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker has been found responsible of breaching the school's sexual harassment policy.

The Title IX ruling, which was obtained by USA Today, concluded that Tucker sexually harassed and exploited activist Brenda Tracy, who had been hired by MSU as a sexual violence prevention educator.

USA Today's Kenny Jacoby first broke the story about the allegations in September.

WKAR's Sophia Saliby speaks to Jacoby about his reporting.

Interview Highlights

On the allegation

On the Title IX decision

On what to expect

Herald-Tribune staff photo / Mike Lang

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Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Interview Transcript

Sophia Saliby: A Michigan State University Title IX investigation has found former football coach Mel Tucker sexually harassed a rape survivor and activist. The report, which came out 10 months after Brenda Tracy first filed the complaint, determined Tucker violated university policy. Tucker continues to deny that he did anything wrong.

Kenny Jacoby is a reporter for USA Today who first broke the story about the allegations in September. He joins me now. Thank you for being here.

Kenny Jacoby: Thank you for having me.

Saliby: Can you just briefly break down the findings of this investigation when it came to what both Tracy and Tucker have said about this 2022 incident at the center of the allegations?

Jacoby: So the center of the investigation is this phone call in April 2022, in which Brenda Tracy said that Mel Tucker masturbated and made sexual comments without her consent. Mel Tucker has maintained that this was a consensual phone sex call.

The investigator found yesterday that there's no evidence that Tracy consented to this call. She also found that Mel Tucker made unwanted sexual advances toward Tracy in the months before the call, and that Tucker engaged in quid pro quo sexual harassment after the call when he subsequently ended their business relationship, effectively conditioning her employment benefits on her submission to his advances.

Saliby: Was there anything in the report that was new to you as somebody who's kind of seen the story from the beginning?

Jacoby: Yeah, the new part was just the analysis of the facts. We knew almost all the facts in the case. And what was interesting was to see what the hearing officer gleaned from them.

She noted that Brenda's account was deemed more plausible, more consistent and more supported by the evidence than Tucker's version of events. That Tucker's contradictory statements made his account difficult to believe.

And that also, despite Mel Tucker's claim of a consensual romantic affair, Brenda and Tucker did not communicate for the three months after the April 2022 phone call, during which Tucker did not respond to Tracy's messages. And the hearing officer found that his claim that he was just too busy to respond was not credible, especially given the frequency with which he had communicated with her during the previous football season.

Saliby: What has Brenda Tracy said following the release of this report?

Jacoby: She said that her immediate reaction was tears of relief. She said this has been a nightmare for her to go through, especially over the last few weeks in which Mel Tucker released a bunch of text messages from the phone of her deceased friend and office assistant and painted them in a way that damaged her character.

Saliby: And then Tucker has also responded. Can you speak on what his attorneys or representatives have said?

Jacoby: Tucker put out a statement this morning through his agent saying that the findings were baseless and not grounded. In fact, he said that they intend to file an appeal in which they will try and admit some of these text messages as new evidence in the case and that they're still considering filing a lawsuit over the matter.

Saliby: And then, looking ahead beyond that appeal, you mentioned the lawsuit. For the most part, after this kind of appeal response process, is this issue mostly settled

Jacoby: I think we'll still be hearing about this for quite a while. There's a few things that can still happen in the campus case. One, is that the school will have to consider Mel Tucker's appeal and whether to admit any of this, what he claims is new evidence, whether to admit that into the case. If they do, they would have to redo some of these processes. There may be additional interviews they have to conduct or they may have to redo part of the hearing and issue an updated report.

If his appeal is denied, that would be the end of the case. But Mel Tucker is fighting a different case in which he's trying to recoup some of the roughly $80 million left on his contract. That's something that would play out either behind closed doors and a settlement with MSU. Or, if he decides to bring it into court, that could be a lengthy process that we might end up hearing about for months or even years.

Saliby: Kenny Jacoby reports for USA Today. Thank you for being here.

Jacoby: Thank you again.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness