MSU board allegedly source of Tracy name leak
Woof. MSU really just lighting $70M on fire.
https://statenews.com/article/2023/09/tucker-accuser-said-leak-came-from-msu-boardroom
September 27th, 2023 at 6:38 PM ^
Why is this not a surprise?
September 27th, 2023 at 6:39 PM ^
Yeah pretty sure a ton of ppl on here called this 2 weeks ago 😆
September 27th, 2023 at 7:51 PM ^
I honestly forgot this was a secret.
September 28th, 2023 at 6:26 AM ^
Here is what I can add. A student in the area I teach is a student manager at State. He said Tucker has dirt on the University. He is looking for 50 million to walk away. So watch for that to happen.
For all of you thinking you’re funny about “knowing a guy” when this plays out like I said make sure you come back and say you were wrong.
September 28th, 2023 at 7:41 AM ^
Can someone verify this on Counterstrike?
September 28th, 2023 at 7:51 AM ^
I know a guy. We were in the joint together. Anybody pulls any job in the Western U.S., he knows about it. Giye me 3 hours, I'll find out who took your money.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:45 AM ^
And the worst thing about prison was the dementors... they were flyin around all over the place
September 28th, 2023 at 12:18 PM ^
PRISON MIKE!
September 28th, 2023 at 8:55 AM ^
You know a guy...
September 28th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
Sounds like Tone Loc talking to Pacino at the illegal chop shop in Heat.
September 28th, 2023 at 1:07 PM ^
Logged in just to upvote this.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:39 AM ^
I love watching the couch burn....its beautiful
September 28th, 2023 at 9:10 AM ^
“The board was informed of MSU's investigation by no later than Sept. 12, Guerrant said.
Despite that, former MSU board chair Dianne Byrumpublicly demanded an investigation into the leak on Sept. 13, after one had been ordered.”
nice grandstanding!
September 28th, 2023 at 9:16 AM ^
If you’re reading this as confirmation that the BoT leaked, it isn’t (doesn’t mean they didn’t, but this article really proves nothing).
Basically, Tracy believes that the BoT leaked and said so in a draft of her official statement where she said her story had been leaked. But that draft was never released - Tracy’s lawyer axed the specific accusation against the BoT in the final statement. She claims it was to avoid a distraction, but I’m pretty sure that’s lawyer speak for “we’re over our skis a bit and I don’t want to make an accusation we can’t prove yet”.
All this story does is confirm that originally Tracy planned to accuse the BoT directly. (so yes, this is a story about a leak (of Tracy’s name) that is itself based on a leak (of Tracy’s draft statement))
Have we actually seen a smoking gun that there really was a leak? To me it still seems very possible that somebody just connected the dots on a few rumors floating around the MSU athletic department and was gonna run with it, and Tracy got spooked. The majority of detailed information we have on the whole story still comes from Tracy herself via the USA Today article and data dump that she actively participated in and signed off when she became aware of the alleged leak.
September 28th, 2023 at 11:13 AM ^
Agree with your earlier point but I also think your version is somewhat generous to the Board. My impression of the article is that the lawyer had reason to believe that the leak was due to someone associated with the BoT. As a lawyer you would not draft a statement without at least reason to believe (something clearly more than a guess). I could be wrong about that but the lawyer doesn't seem to back down from that being her assumption.
September 30th, 2023 at 12:48 AM ^
I don’t know how you can read “deleted Tracy’s accusation against the board from her initial statement” as not backing down.
At the moment, we have zero actual evidence the board leaked, other than Tracy’s accusation, and some against it - the Board would not have been told themselves through official channels (according to the article, only the investigators, the Athletic Director, and the President “officially” knew) so someone would have had to leak it first to the Board for them to be the source of the public leak.
September 30th, 2023 at 1:13 AM ^
And I’m really not trying to be “generous” to the board, they certainly haven’t earned it, just don’t want people misreading the actual information here based on the OP’s title and the first couple comments .
September 27th, 2023 at 6:42 PM ^
So, does this mean they have to pay Tucker what was on contract?
September 27th, 2023 at 7:01 PM ^
MSU's termination letter focuses on the "disrepute" that Tucker brought to the university, so if he can show that the university through its BoT created that "disrepute" by leaking it out into the world, he's gonna have a toehold in the coming legal battle. Curious what the employment lawyers think.
September 27th, 2023 at 7:48 PM ^
Nah. Tucker was ultimately going to be fired regardless, and the report undergirding the firing would have been made public (with redactions). The “leak” just expedited things a bit. MSU had cause to fire Tucker. So this development doesn’t substantially help his case.
People get way too caught up in leak drama. Leaking is usually legal.
September 27th, 2023 at 8:04 PM ^
Maybe. The value of any settlement just went up, though. MSU would be stupid to let this get to discovery. It’s going to be a mess. Tucker hired real lawyers - the woman is a great commercial/contracts litigator in southeast Michigan and the man is one of the top management side employment attorneys in the state.
September 27th, 2023 at 8:51 PM ^
If I had $75M on the line, I would hire the best too. Still, MSU has deep pockets as well.
September 27th, 2023 at 11:24 PM ^
I would hire the best two too.
September 28th, 2023 at 10:50 AM ^
You said, two too...
(sounds like tu-tu which makes my inner 6 year old giggle...)
September 27th, 2023 at 9:35 PM ^
What? It’s mostly Tucker’s abhorrent behavior after the leak that is damming him. He can certainly argue that he might have survived had it not been for the terrible public position he found himself in which inflamed his reaction. He would have a great case to sue for damages.
September 27th, 2023 at 11:47 PM ^
Eh. I'm not an employment lawyer, but MSU's cited reason for firing him is the pre-leak misconduct, which certainly seems sufficient to fire him regardless of whether it was consensual and regardless of whether the the misconduct was publicly known. His argument would essentially require him to claim that MSU wouldn't fire someone for misconduct if the misconduct remained secret which, jokes about MSU aside, is not a serious argument.
The true way this helps him is in settlement negotiations. MSU does not want their internal communications scrutinized by his lawyers and potentially publicized in court filings, so they have incentive to settle before a lengthy and potentially embarrassing discovery process. But if this case actually is litigated through completion, I think he has little to no shot of winning.
September 28th, 2023 at 7:26 AM ^
I agree. But to make a calculated leak (which violated their policy process) to potentially speed the firing and/or improve their chances of prevailing, creates a lot of leverage for the consensual masturbator’s lawyers.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:54 AM ^
Where Tucker has a point here is that it's clear the university actually fired him due to bad PR just based on the timeline. They don't have a bad PR clause to fire him for cause which is why they rely entirely on the idea of firing him for the conduct alleged with Tracy...which he will probably correctly argue that they knew about for months and took no corrective action. If they do go to discovery, it would not be shocking to find that the details of the investigation went wider than the presidents office and Office of Gen Counsel, but I think that's enough to make his case anyway. Mostly depends on how favorably the judge views MSU for firing him or how much they are penalized for sitting on their hands and then pretending to fire him for due to moral indignation.
I think he'll settle in the low 8 figures.
September 28th, 2023 at 1:24 PM ^
The reason Tugger will get a big settlement is because MSU doesn't want a microscope up its ass. Transparency is something they have consistently fought against, and the last thing they want is to have to turn over thousands of pages of emails and documents and have their officers sit for depositions.
September 27th, 2023 at 7:52 PM ^
Are you sure that they didn't simply misspell "disrespekt"?
September 28th, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
Tugger said put some respect on his name.
September 27th, 2023 at 9:06 PM ^
They'll settle. There is no way they let this go to discovery or drag out in public.
Mel Tucker is going to get PAID before joining the staff at Bama or Maryland. PAID, I tell you.
September 27th, 2023 at 6:43 PM ^
”Someone associated with the BOT.”
So either a trustee or a big money donor.
Feds may get involved.
Interesting that Tracy didn’t want attention drawn to leaker. USA Today knows the identity of the leaker. They should spill the beans.
September 27th, 2023 at 6:45 PM ^
East Lansing is about to be a crater
September 27th, 2023 at 7:40 PM ^
The article says that was the lawyer who made this decision, not Tracy herself.
Karen Truszkowski, Tracy’s attorney, said the modification was a “legal strategy.”
“I wanted people to know there was a leak, that it was not Brenda,” Truszkowski said. “I did not think it was necessary to point the finger at anyone in particular, so I chose not to do that because it still had the same effect.”
September 27th, 2023 at 7:59 PM ^
Lawyers don’t make decisions for the client. Clients make the ultimate decision.
September 27th, 2023 at 8:47 PM ^
Just passing along what was reported
September 27th, 2023 at 11:55 PM ^
At least in my practice, which is not in Michigan, "legal strategy" is the province of the lawyer, without the need for client approval. Of course, most lawyers get approval for this as well on an important strategy, which makes me think this is a lawyer protecting client involvement.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:20 AM ^
Dollar Bill!!!
September 28th, 2023 at 1:03 AM ^
Ideally, yes, but practically, no. Some decisions are inherently the client’s final call — but those are rare. Most strategy decisions belong to the lawyer, but the lawyer should, as long as practicable, consult w/the client.
In practice, many lawyers believe they “know” what is “best” — take that w/a grain of salt because they often don’t — and act w/o full consultation w/frequency. That’s what I’ve seen in 30+ years of practice, mostly criminal law, some high stakes civil law.
September 27th, 2023 at 8:53 PM ^
Or both.
From what I remember, only the Board and the Title IX person knew about the investigation. So if the BOT knew, either one of them leaked, or they told a donor who leaked.
September 30th, 2023 at 12:44 AM ^
No one on the board was officially told. It was only the President, the AD, and the OIE (group doing the investigation)
September 28th, 2023 at 8:58 AM ^
Not their job nor would it be ethical for a newspaper to reveal a source. Not that ethics exist in journalism anymore.
September 27th, 2023 at 6:45 PM ^
Sparty no ftw
September 27th, 2023 at 6:46 PM ^
Maybe they can put out the fire by taking a leak on it.
September 27th, 2023 at 6:51 PM ^
These guys already tried but their urine alcohol content instead fueled the fire.
September 27th, 2023 at 7:00 PM ^
This is a fake picture. Right?
September 27th, 2023 at 7:14 PM ^
Kinda sad for MSU that it's totally plausible this is real, huh?
September 27th, 2023 at 7:25 PM ^
It's on the Internet so it HAS TO be real!
(Besides, I found it on the WOOD-TV website, with this particular photo apparently posted by the E. Lansing Police Dept. Twitter account.)
September 27th, 2023 at 7:35 PM ^
Wow. Thank you