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Brenda Tracy tells MSU administrators she does not support survivors

Online Niel October 27, 2024

More than a year after Brenda Tracy’s sexual harassment complaint against former Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker surfaced, she’s speaking out more publicly than she ever has.

On Friday, the sexual assault survivor and activist appeared before the MSU Board of Trustees for the first time after traveling more than 2,300 miles from her home in Oregon. In the three minutes she was able to speak before trustees during the October meeting, she called out several current and former board members and challenged what she described as false narratives about her.

Tracy began and ended her statement by echoing many sentiments about MSU that have previously been made public about MSU by many other survivors, particularly those victimized by now-incarcerated serial sex abuser Larry Nassar.

“I came here today to tell you some of the ways you hurt me,” Tracy said. “I turned to MSU for help and instead I was victim-blamed, shamed, accused of collusion and used as a pawn for personal agendas.”

“You say you’re a survivor council,” Tracy continued. “It wasn’t my experience with you, but I guess it should have been.”

MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant declined to comment, and board president Dan Kelly could not be reached.

This is the second time Tracy has spoken publicly about her and Tucker’s ordeal. Earlier this month, she met with WILX-TV in Lansing and gave an extensive interview after filing a civil suit against Tucker. She and Tucker also filed lawsuits against MSU.

Tracy, an Oregon resident, met Tucker in 2021 when he was looking for someone to educate the team about sexual violence prevention. At the time, MSU had been rocked for years by the Nassar sex-abuse scandal, which involved hundreds of mostly young female athletes.

Tracy had founded the nonprofit, Set expectationswho teaches male athletes about consent after surviving a gang rape in 1998. Tucker, who was one of the highest-paid coaches in sports with a 10-year MSU contract worth $95 million of dollars, invited Tracy to speak to the MSU football team three. times and a friendship developed.

But it turned into a situation Tracy described as “predatory” and culminated in a late-night phone call when she said Tucker masturbated during a phone call against her will. Tucker said their relationship was consensual.

An MSU hearing officer determined last October that Tucker sexually harassed Tracy and violated her contract. He was fired in September.

Tracy filed a complaint with MSU in December 2022, then went public with her story months later amid MSU’s investigation after her name was leaked.

“I was faced with a decision: do I go public or let the media narrative choose the narrative for me,” Tracy told the MSU board of trustees. “During the process (of the sexual harassment investigation) it became apparent that I would need to protect myself, but I should not have protected myself from you, MSU administrators.”

Tracy read a text sent by former MSU administrator Pat O’Keefe saying her actions were “out of bounds,” then called Vassar administrator Rema.

“It’s so hard to understand why she would kill herself in her career,” Tracy said, reading a text from O’Keefe to Vassar. “He had a lot of outlets if he didn’t want to be a victim, like turning off the phone, the battery died… Dr. Vassar, this message was sent to you and you supported it by putting your heart into it. “

Reached by phone, O’Keefe declined to comment. Vassar could not be reached.

Tracy continued to question Vassar from the podium, saying the former board president “alleged interference” in the investigation of trustees Renee Knake Jefferson, Dianne Byrum and Brianna Scott.

“These allegations of collusion are also alleged in Mel Tucker’s lawsuit (against the MSU administration and board of trustees),” Tracy said, “which alleges that … the administration and the defendants worked personally with Tracy and her counsel and with OIE staff to develop a factual record. intended to support his false claims against the defendant.

“These allegations are absolutely false,” Tracy continued. “I have never met any of you or spoken to any of you until today and I have never gotten along with anyone.”

Tracy also disputed a claim by Vassar that an outside investigation by the law firm Jones Day cleared the board of leaking her name.

“Dr Vassar, as chairman of the board, you said the board was exonerated because of the leak of my name, but Trustee (Dennis) Denno, you did not give the investigators the phone to help exonerate you. as being involved directly or indirectly with the leaking of my name. This is not an exoneration of this commission.

Denno could not be reached.

“I filed a complaint with the OIE because I was sexually harassed and threatened by head football coach Mel Tucker, a man who pretended to be an ally for survivors, a man who brought me here to educate his staff and players in sexual violence and misconduct prevention, and then I came back and then I came back and he did the same thing I was brought here to do.”

Tucker’s attorneys could not be reached for comment.

After Tracy’s emotional statement to the board, her attorney, Karen Truszkowski, also addressed the board and criticized the way they handled the situation involving Tracy and Tucker.

Tracy later spoke to local television news station WLNS 6 News and went into more detail about her thoughts on what happened to the MSU board after she filed her complaint against Tucker. She said the council was in political “chaos” so she was “caught in the crossfire”.

She said her reputation had been destroyed and it had “decimated her life” after working on more than 100 campuses across the country and more than 50,000 young people, including coaches. She said she hasn’t worked since Tucker’s ordeal.

“The part that gets lost in all of this is that I’m a brutal gang rape survivor and I came forward 16 years after it happened in 2014,” Tracy said. “I found the courage to go public and then I tried to take that trauma and turn it into something good and use it to help other people.”

But then, she said, Tucker acted in a way that was “predatory.”

But she said she wouldn’t change a thing.

“I wouldn’t do anything different because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Tracy said. “And I think that’s the point that I really want people to understand, like stop asking me questions and slandering me and blaming me. Ask him why he did that.”

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