MSU Trustee calls for investigation into name leak
Dianne Byrum, one of MSUs trustees, made a statement calling for the university to investigate and identify who leaked Brenda Tracy's name. Gretchen Whitmer tweeted about "wanting answers as well."
I hope they get all the facts soon and hold folks accountable.
September 13th, 2023 at 7:37 PM ^
MSUs original sin was paying a less than middling Colorado coach a $95M contract.
Multiple people thought that was a good idea based on a single game.
September 13th, 2023 at 7:40 PM ^
We should be putting football fandom aside in this situation and hope that the rest of the disciplinary process for Tucker is done thoroughly and leads to an indisputable decision (as it stands, it looks like it's headed towards his dismissal). While it's clear that more needs to be done to make MSU a LOT better at dealing with sexual misconduct, I don't typically root for large public resources doling out tons of settlement money that may impact its ability to provide the people/state it serves with a quality and (semi-)affordable education.
That said, I must admit as a UM/MSU alum that they may need a large kick in the pants to drive the point that they still have a very broken culture when it comes to these issues. Their president is currently in her position because the BoT went after the former president for being a stickler about mandatory reporting of inappropriate occurrences. They then shuffled the professor at the root of the incident that was reported off to another school. They brought back Dantonio after the sketchy history he has with dealing with these kinds of offenses from his players. During my time as a student at MSU, many classmates expressed anger at ESPN for shining light on some of these cases, and looked at players such as Adrien Payne positively despite additional information made available by those reports. It's clear from Tucker's statements about the cases that some of these ideas are likely being echoed in their AD. It's all extremely, extremely frustrating, and continually causes embarrassment to the school and its alumni.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:12 PM ^
Their president is currently in her position because the BoT went after the former president for being a stickler about mandatory reporting of inappropriate occurrences.
Sort of. Woodruff is the one, as provost, who removed Dean Gupta for failing to report to OIE. Stanley backed Woodruff's decision. The BoT got mad at Stanley for defending Woodruff and forced his resignation, hired an outside investigator to look into Woodruff's decision...then made Woodruff interim president.
Then Gupta sued Woodruff and Stanley for violating his due process and then added the BoT to his suit, which alleged that Woodruff used her power to remove him as a rival as Stanley's successor.
Then Woodruff withdrew her name from consideration for permanent president.
I think I have that mostly correct. It's hard to keep straight.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:49 PM ^
Good summary, Henson's mobile. I don't know who in their right mind from outside the university would want the president job. It was bad enough before.
September 14th, 2023 at 4:11 PM ^
Thanks for clarifying, HM! Agreed that the situation has been a convoluted mess...
September 13th, 2023 at 9:00 PM ^
"... I must admit as a UM/MSU alum that they may need a large kick in the pants to drive the point that they still have a very broken culture when it comes to these issues..."
They have been getting kicked in the pants, front and back, for the last 5 - 7 years.
Maybe people should kick a little higher. Think stomach, head, etc....
Eventually they will learn.
September 13th, 2023 at 10:42 PM ^
Says who?
September 13th, 2023 at 7:33 PM ^
Could it have been ol' triple chin himself...John boy Engler????
Mmmmm, probably not. He's still in hiding over the Nassar subpoena 🤔
September 13th, 2023 at 7:50 PM ^
Don’t forget: dodging embezzlement charges. He robbed MSU fucking blind.
September 13th, 2023 at 7:50 PM ^
$1 says this traced back the Board of Trustees. Board member told one of the major donors, who immediately leaked it to avoid flushing more money down the toilet.
September 14th, 2023 at 6:01 AM ^
MSU BOT should hire OJ Simpson to help them find the culprit.
September 14th, 2023 at 8:44 AM ^
This is what my spartan neighbor is telling me
September 13th, 2023 at 7:52 PM ^
This lady sounds reasonable - how did she get involved with the MSU BoT? She's probably a Grade A pariah around the office right now...
September 14th, 2023 at 11:34 AM ^
I remember Byrum from her politics in the late 90s/early 2000s. I dont remember much of her policies since I was a high schooler, but she left an impression on me that she was pretty level headed and made good choices. From her Bio:
Byrum was first elected to the Michigan House in 1991, and to the state Senate in 1995, returning to the House in 2002. She served on the Ingham County Board of Commissioners from 1983 to 1990. Byrum has served as co-director of the Michigan Political Leadership Program, an MSU program that trains future public policy leaders.
Of course then I find this:
So just within the last 3 months some Trustees tried to get her off the board for some prior tax issues...there are definitely some factions and politics going on with the Board. Could explain why she is now calling out her colleagues.
September 14th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^
I'm an independent, but have voted more R than D over the years, but usually split my ticket. I knew her name before her BoT days and always considered her level-headed and willing to work across the aisle. I respect her voice on this panel more than some of the others.
September 14th, 2023 at 2:03 PM ^
There are absolutely a few shitheads on the Board worse than her.
September 13th, 2023 at 7:52 PM ^
To me this reeks of politics but the end result could end up being good for all involved — except the leak source.
Given the small circle of people that knew the truth, I would guess that Dianne has a pretty good idea who was behind the leak and would further posit that his person is a rival of hers on the BoT.
She can come out as the defender of justice and knock off an enemy at the same time.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:05 PM ^
She's 69 years old and a partner in a PR firm. I think she's doing her job.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:10 PM ^
Considering she's a major property tax cheat and ripped off us residents of the State of Michigan I'm sure she has a number of enemies on the board to lash out at.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:15 PM ^
Idk anything about her other than a cursory google search. Have an article?
September 13th, 2023 at 8:12 PM ^
Man, that BoT is a toxic mess. It's been that way for years. They voted in a mostly new group in 2020 and still can't seem to get out of their way.
September 14th, 2023 at 11:42 AM ^
Toxic individuals who form cliques of power control. Joel Ferguson was the worst and laid the foundation for many of MSU's problems today.
September 14th, 2023 at 12:17 PM ^
Every MSU grad I've talked to despised Ferguson but he was party of the party elite and kept getting elected.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:17 PM ^
A leak? Last time there was a leak like that, Noah built himself a boat!
September 14th, 2023 at 6:36 AM ^
Noah Kim? Part Korean, Part Jew?
BTW, I have to give props to MSU for having two partial Koreans in their starting lineup. (I think the kicker is also a Kim)
September 14th, 2023 at 8:50 AM ^
That’s his brother.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:40 PM ^
Alls I know is that if Harbaugh got 3 games for hamburgers then MSU should get the death penalty just because.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:41 PM ^
The MSU Board Of Trustees is....everything people have said it was and less.
That said, she's quite right - they have been less than transparent when they absolutely needed to be transparent, and now would be an excellent time to change their ways and make sure people are accountable for their actions.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:41 PM ^
Somehow this will be blamed on Harbaugh.
September 14th, 2023 at 11:36 AM ^
Or that daggum tunnel.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:45 PM ^
This can only mean that Diane Byrum is the leaker.
September 13th, 2023 at 8:47 PM ^
I doubt the story was leaked to retaliate against Tracy—it was leaked to get the ball rolling on dumping Tucker. This way, the AD can start the process now of looking for a new coach. If Tucker wasn't canned until late October or early November, it leaves MSU that much less time to find a replacement.
September 13th, 2023 at 9:08 PM ^
But why would you leak a permanent stigma embarrassing story like this just to rid yourself of his contract? They will never live this down. The long term financial fallout of this story, in totality, could be worse than his contract. In my opinion that theory sounds good, but it doesn't really make sense.
When you leak something like that, for internal gains, you need to make sure the leak in and of itself isn't devastating to the brand. Or are they simply that clumsy and bad at PR?
Does this make sense to anyone else? Really scratching my head on this theory.
September 13th, 2023 at 10:46 PM ^
Devastating to the brand? Given the last 20 years I'd say it's a bit late to be worrying about that.
September 14th, 2023 at 1:00 AM ^
It was going to come out anyway. You can't fire your football coach for cause and leave people in the dark about why. All this does is move the timing up, which does have advantages if you are interested in dumping Tucker ASAP and moving on to the next guy
September 14th, 2023 at 1:06 AM ^
If you believe the story will get out eventually. I do, by the way. Then it makes sense to leak it when they did. The timing makes it more likely that Tucker gets fired and it builds public support for his dismissal. In the absence of this leak, there was a greater chance that MSU tries to sweep the story under the rug with a very generous settlement for Tucker. He'll still likely settle, but MSU doesn't have the same motivation to be generous.
September 14th, 2023 at 9:30 AM ^
Just thinking through this.
Assuming the "it was going to get out eventually" is true.
If they had waited, as opposed to leaked, and dumped it right after some other breaking national story (Massive Hurricane X makes devastating landfall = Drop story) they could have avoided some of the national media and attention by hiding in the shadow of a bigger news story. It also could have looked more like he was being fired for his record, assuming their schedule is going to deliver them a mediocre season.
If the accuser indeed wanted to remain anonymous, it would have had a lesser impact as well, and looked more like a faceless accusation.
I like the "it was going to get out anyways" concept, but it still leaves some questions. Why daylight the accuser? Why leak the explicit details?
Anyone else is welcome to try and think this out, I am all ears for how you handle this more gracefully without taking a head on collision.
September 14th, 2023 at 9:51 AM ^
Why leak the explicit details?
They weren't part of the leak. USA Today already had the story but they weren't going to run it until after the hearing.
We don't know what this leak contained beyond her name. Presumably it included at least the fact that there was an investigation of Tucker's conduct, but who knows what version of the story it was going to portray. The only clue we have is that it was alarming enough to Tracy and Jacoby that he ran immediately with what he had.
September 14th, 2023 at 10:09 AM ^
Alarming to Jacoby? I don’t understand what that means. He was afraid of getting scooped? The only thing preventing him from publishing his story sooner is that his only on the record source wasn’t on the record yet. As soon as Tracy gave him permission he ran it.
September 14th, 2023 at 10:47 AM ^
Yeah, I guess there are basically two possibilities: (1) "local media" called Tracy and asked if she'd go on the record, or (2) local media likely being a Gannett property, it got noticed to Jacoby somehow, this sort of story being part of his beat after all, in which case he wouldn't even have to worry about getting scooped.
What I was imagining, and I'm not suggesting this is in any way likely, it's just one of the images that came to mind: Tracy's afraid Tucker's going to try to ruin her. She thinks he threatened this on the phone last summer, before she had even filed the complaint, and after the Paula Lavigne stuff she's not wrong to worry about it now. What if the story as held by local media included some version of that (with Lavigne's name left out of course)?
September 14th, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
Yeah, who knows, right? I can't really make it make sense. I guess my biggest issue with this piece of it right now is that for people who claim they want to be "patently clear" (Tracy's lawyer) or provide "some context" (Tracy) they're being rather unclear and making the context more convoluted. I've wasted too many brain cells on it now. I'll wait for the next tweet to drop.
September 14th, 2023 at 2:15 PM ^
This goes back to my question, in the response below. What could a local story have contained?
-- I cannot think of a scenario of a local media outlet being able to publish her name.
-- Can a local media outlet publish a story about an investigation without a source? It did not appear that anyone had approached the MSU administration asking for confirmation about a story since they all looked as though they had their pants down when the story was published. Would you go to Tracy first or MSU asking for confirmation about what was originally thought to be a Title IX investigation?
-- With the way that MSU was caught with their pants down, it does not appear that the media outlet approached Tucker asking for a comment, etc.
-- Hate to say it, but from Tuckers comment, it does appear that this story going public hurts him way more than her.
God, I sound cynical to even myself, but this story when it was published, in my gut feels much better as an offensive weapon than a defensive one.
September 13th, 2023 at 9:00 PM ^
I have a question about the publication and maybe those with a greater insight into journalism can help.
Let's take it at face value that Brenda Tracy's name was leaked. Could/would any newspaper publish? It has always been my understanding that the media tends to withhold information about victims unless they authorize their names being published.
Can a newspaper/media outlet publish a story without a source? It's one thing as someone suggested that a member of the BoT said something to someone who said something to a media contact, but don't you need a firsthand source before publishing? Someone to actually go on the record (and obviously have their identity protected by the media outlet). I can't see anyone who would have had that access being that stupid to actually go on the record. Provide information off the record, yeah, I can see that, but not actually going on record about this.
So why did Brenda Tracy have to go to the media?
September 13th, 2023 at 9:26 PM ^
Here is what we know 100%. Brenda Tracy went on record with USA Today and provided them with the documents from the investigation.
Yesterday, her lawyer released a statement that said, in part:
"Her identity was disclosed without her knowledge or consent, warranting express actions to protect her. Her choice to allow this process to proceed privately was taken away. Let me be patently clear: Brenda Tracy had no intention of disclosing anything publicly until someone else violated her right to confidentiality."
It is unclear to me what prompted this statement from the lawyer. Was Tracy under attack for having talked to the media, which is her right? I missed that.
Anyway, USA Today only published her name because she agreed to go on record. Without her permission, they would not have used her name.
It's unclear to me why she felt compelled to go on record with them. Her lawyer's statement, I presume, is meant to imply that USA Today had a full story and was going to publish a lot of details without her name. However, their story indicated that pretty much all their details came from what was in the investigative documents, which they received from...Brenda Tracy.
No one has sufficiently explained to me why Tracy felt it necessary to speak USA Today to protect herself. It is possible that someone else had leaked details to USA Today that they would have published, but I have seen nothing that suggests that's the case, other than Tracy's lawyer's vague statement.
Edit: Well, you made me go looking and apparently there was more last night:
Honestly I'm more confused now than before. So she preemptively cooperated with USA Today, but presumably all off the record--although I'm not sure that you can provide documents off the record. Like, if I'm USA Today and I have the documents, I publish the story, just without her name. But I guess they agreed to her conditions. But then her name was leaked to some other local media outlet (per her lawyer's statement) and so then she called USA Today and said, okay Go! Because...I still don't know why. I guess because she was certain that someone else was about to write a story about her, which I don't really understand that line of thinking. Or maybe she just did it to punish MSU.
September 13th, 2023 at 11:20 PM ^
Confusion indeed.
So Brend Tracy did not want to be identified prior to the hearing October 5th, yet after the hearing on October 5th, she was ready to publish her story in USA Today. So, she is upset that her confidentiality was violated prior to October 5th?
Mel Tucker's statement pretty much says that he believes the hearing will be a sham.
For all intents and purposes, it appears that pretty much everything investigation wise was completed on July 25th.
Prior to the USA Today story, did Tucker think he was going to win the hearing and keep his job? The article makes a damning case against Tucker, it seems difficult to believe that Tucker would prevail at the hearing and keep his job as well as his admitted activity quiet.
September 14th, 2023 at 8:26 AM ^
If USA Today was going to write a story about this with any detail it would not be difficult to figure out who the likely person was.
September 14th, 2023 at 9:48 AM ^
Tracy produced 6 witnesses. Some people in Mel's life knew what was going on. Any number of people at MSU could have had access to what was in the report, despite their assertions that no one at MSU knew what was in the report.
I don't see how it would be easy to identify who provided a newspaper with details about the case.
There's also no reason to believe that's what even happened. Tracy has not made a claim that anyone other than her gave a newspaper details of the case. She has only made the claim that her identity was leaked to local media (not USA Today), even though she had already given her name and documents to USA Today (per her tweet on Tuesday).
She and her lawyer have not said which outlet received her name through a leak nor have they said how they even know that happened.
September 14th, 2023 at 2:18 PM ^
My point was once Brenda found out USA Today was writing a detailed article, even if they planned to keep her name anonymous, it would not have taken to much public speculation to put her at the top of the list as being the person in the complaint.
So it would make sense for her to want to control the narrative in her terms than watch her name floated around in the background.
September 14th, 2023 at 2:32 PM ^
I see. Assumed you were talking about who leaked the story, not who the complainant was. Thanks for clarifying.
September 14th, 2023 at 6:10 PM ^
From Tracy's statement's it wasn't that USA Today was planning on writing a detailed article. Her statement says that she cooperated with USA Today ahead of time and was planning on having the USA Today story released after the October hearing.