MSU Football Coach Suspended After Report on Misconduct Allegations

Mel Tucker, a football coach for Michigan State, has been suspended without pay, the university announced on Sunday, less than a day after it was revealed he was the subject of an investigation into claims he sexually harassed a prominent anti-sexual violence activist. The school’s athletic director, Alan Haller, announced Tucker’s interim suspension at a news conference. The ongoing third-party investigation, according to Haller, began last December. A report on the matter was submitted to the school in July, and a hearing is slated to take place in early October. Tucker was only suspended, however, seemingly within hours of the publication of an explosive USA Today report, in which rape survivor Brenda Tracy accused him of making sexual comments and masturbating while on a phone call with her last April. In a letter to investigators, Tucker characterized their relationship as “mutually consensual and intimate,” according to USA Today. Haller said Sunday that “interim measures” would be put in place until “the hearing and final decision processes are complete.”