An investigation could not determine who at the university may have leaked the identity of Brenda Tracy, the rape survivor and advocate who accused then-football coach Mel Tucker of sexual harassment. But one trustee refused to comply with the investigators. 

Trustee Dennis Denno, who investigators believe "has information relevant to the leak investigation" was the only trustee who declined repeated requests for an interview and did not provide his cell phone for investigators to review. Denno has not responded to multiple requests for comment. 

A report of the investigation, conducted by law firm Jones Day, was released by MSU on Dec. 29.

The report comes over three months after the investigation was first ordered by MSU on Sept. 12 after Tracy released a statement one day prior that said an outside party had leaked her identity. This leak, Tracy said, forced her to come forward prior to the completion of the Office of Institutional Equity investigation into Tucker’s alleged harassment. 

However, a State News report later revealed that Tracy’s lawyer, Karen Truszkowski, had initially sent a different statement to the Board of Trustees. The draft statement said “someone associated with the MSU Board of Trustees” disclosed Tracy’s identity to an outside party who then shared it with local media. 

The investigation focused on one particular trustee, “Trustee X,” who Truszkowski told Quinn “may have been involved in a chain of communications that led to the disclosure of Tracy’s name to the media.” According to the report, Truszkowski based this claim on her conversations with an unidentified local journalist. 

However, the investigation did not find that Trustee X was involved in any chain of communication that leaked Tracy’s identity to the media. To the contrary, the investigation “uncovered evidence tending to refute that allegation.”

The investigation involved 59 interviews of 52 witnesses, including seven of the eight trustees.

No one in MSU’s administration declined to be interviewed for the investigation. Jones Day interviewed 36 MSU employees and attempted to interview 20 members of the media, most of whom refused. 

Jones Day also investigated who at MSU may have leaked Truszkowski’s draft statement to The State News. While the firm could not determine the source of the leak, it concluded that it is “more likely than not” that one of the 12 recipients of the email, all of whom were associated with MSU, provided the draft statement to The State News. 

“Our investigation was constrained due to a number of factors, including journalists’ reluctance to reveal their sources, various individuals who refused to fully participate in our investigation, and a general lack of relevant documentary evidence,” the report said. 

Tenure stream faculty union requests formal recognition

The majority of tenure stream faculty at Michigan State University want to unionize, following the launch of the Union of Tenure Stream Faculty’s campaign in November, in hopes of giving professors more power in administrative decision making.

NiCole Buchanan, a member of the organizing committee for UTSF, said that “well over 54%” of tenure stream faculty at MSU have signed authorization cards indicating they want to join the union. 

MSU's non-tenure track faculty and many of MSU's non-academic staffers are already unionized, but research focused, tenure-track professors are not. 

While cards are still being signed, Buchanan anticipates they’ve received “far beyond” the majority approval needed for MSU to recognize them as a collective bargaining group.

 UTSF requested that recognition from the Board of Trustees on Tuesday and asked for a response by Jan. 10.

“We are hoping and we are expecting that they will, on their own, voluntarily recognize our union,” Buchanan said.

MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said “the university plans to work with the tenure faculty on a mutual card check process per the Board of Trustees resolution approved in Dec. 2021 and following the state Public Employment Relations Act.”

UTSF also filed a petition seeking recognition from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, or MERC, a state government organization that resolves labor-related issues and can formally recognize unions.

Filing with MERC serves multiple purposes. 

For one, Buchanan said MERC will be there “as a failsafe” in case MSU’s Board of Trustees stalls or fails to recognize the union. Additionally, the commission would verify how many tenure stream faculty members signed the authorization cards in their recognition process, which Buchanan said is convenient as both UTSF and MSU require a third party to verify their counts.

Faculty workloads and compensation are among the common themes that arose among UTSF’s conversations with faculty, Buchanan said. 

“Do we have equitable working conditions for all of the faculty on campus so that we can offer high quality instruction and commitment to our students (without being) overworked and overwhelmed?” Buchanan said.

But Buchanan said the overarching goal of the unionization effort is to give tenure stream faculty a louder voice in administrative discussions. 

“We want a say in some of the decisions that are impacting ourselves and other students,” Buchanan said.

Strong overall performance propels MSU men's basketball to victory over Indiana State

In the MSU men’s basketball team’s final competition of 2023, they took on the Indiana State Sycamores for just the second time in school history. Again, the Spartans won by a margin of more than 10 points. 

The first matchup was the 1979 National Championship, which saw two NBA legends go head-to-head: Larry Bird for the Sycamores and Magic Johnson for the Spartans. 

The Spartans, who started the month of December with two straight losses to Wisconsin and Nebraska —both Big Ten opponents — have since turned it around with five straight wins. The 87-75 home victory over Indiana State increased that winning streak to four straight. 

While non-conference matchups in the month of December are typically less intense than those at the beginning of the season, Indiana State was not to be taken as a joke. The Sycamores were 11-1 and in the nation’s top five in three-point coming into the Dec. 30 matchup. 

Head coach Tom Izzo commended his team’s defensive performance and ability to quell Indiana State’s center Robbie Avila, who has contributed largely to Indiana State’s offensive success so far this season. 

Despite heading into the matchup averaging 16.5 points per game, Avila was held to only five points, while also logging four fouls. 

“That kid (Avila) is just like the center from Denver (Nikola Jokić),” Izzo said. “I mean, he's really, really good. We actually did a decent job, so I was pleased that we bounced back. I really was.”

Another bright side was Michigan State's upperclassmen offensive production.

Michigan State had four veteran players in double-digits on Saturday afternoon: graduate student guard Tyson Walker scored 22, graduate student forward Malik Hall with 18, senior guard A.J. Hoggard with 17 and junior guard Jaden Akins scored 13. On top of the high-scoring vets, senior center Mady Sissoko came up with 12 big rebounds for the green and white. 

Although Michigan State maintained the lead for most of the first half, a three-point shooting hot streak at the start of the second half propelled the Sycamores to a five-point lead. This has happened to this MSU team before, and the response — or the lack thereof — has cost some tight games. In a post game press conference, Izzo said he was pleased with the way the team responded, as well as the coaching staff’s ability to make some needed adjustments. 

“We respond, we came back. We’re down again, came back,” Izzo said. “And I'll tell you, I thought our defense was pretty good at some of those shots too. The team was not easy to cover, and you've never seen them, and that's the problem when you never see a team. My staff did a hell of a job, and they deserve a lot of credit too. And the team does because there are different coverages; we had to change some coverages — that is not your normal team.”

MSU men’s basketball trounces Penn State

The MSU men's basketball team’s first matchup of the new year saw them dominate the Penn State Nittany Lions for both teams’ third Big Ten matchup of the season. 

Heading into the game, Michigan State had yet to defeat a conference opponent, falling to No. 21 Wisconsin and Nebraska consecutively to start the month of December. 

Graduate student forward Malik Hall started out with the hot hand for the Spartans, hitting a mid-range fadeaway to open the scoring, before logging nine of the Spartans’ first 14 points. 

About six minutes in, coach Tom Izzo opted to run a bigger lineup, subbing in freshman center Coen Carr and freshman forward Xavier Booker. Although Booker got a couple of points on the board, Penn State started slowly closing in on Michigan State’s young lineup.

After a few minutes, Izzo subbed back in his experienced veteran guards and the Spartans regained firm control of the game. 

Graduate student guard and MSU star player Tyson Walker was fairly quiet to start the game, logging only four points in the opening minutes, but back-to-back threes from Walker put him firmly in the double digits and enthralled the home crowd. 

The Spartans offense was strong throughout, shooting 64.5% from the field and 62.5% from three-point range. The green and white headed into the locker room with a 25-point lead. 

A dicey range of five turnovers in five minutes at the midpoint of the second half by the Spartans and a small scoring run by the Nittany Lions was far from enough to make the competition interesting. 

With the lead firmly in hand, Malik Hall went to the bench as the clock wound down after a stellar performance that included a career-high 24 points for the Spartans veteran.

Reporters Amalia Medina, Theo Scheer and Bella Johnson contributed to the contents of this article.