Michigan State Coach Mel Tucker Suspended in the Midst of Sexual Harassment Investigation
Michigan State University head football coach Mel Tucker has been suspended. The suspension comes following the news dropping that he’s the subject of an MSU Title IX investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, MSU announced Sunday (Sept. 10). According to a release, Mel Tucker is suspended without pay pending the result of the MSU’s investigation. The hearing will start Oct. 5.
While Tucker is gone, secondary coach Harlon Barnett will be acting head coach. Also, Mark Dantonio will assist him. Spartan fans know Dantonio as one of the most successful MSU football coaches of all time. Dantonio serve as on-field assistant for MSU.
Mel Tucker Suspended
According to a release, Brenda Tracy filed a complaint December 2022. Tracy is a rape survivor and activist against sexual violence. In the complain, she accused Tucker of making sexually suggestive comments and masturbating as she “sat frozen for several minutes” during a phone call. That call took place, she stated, on April 28, 2022. She shared the details with USA Today, stating that she went to MSU at least three times as an activist beginning in 2021 and got to know Tucker there. Back in 1998, Tracy was gang raped by four men, three college football players and a recruit. Since then, she’s become an activist against sexual violence.
“The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Tracy told USA Today. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”
Tucker has responded, too. “Ms. Tracy’s distortion of our mutually consensual and intimate relationship into allegations of sexual exploitations has really affected me,” Tucker wrote in a letter to the investigator USA Today obtained. “I am not proud of my judgement and I am having difficulty forgiving myself for getting into this situation, but I did not engage in misconduct by any definition.”