The university investigation concluded the following month, finding Tucker responsible for the harassment and exploitation of Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor and advocate who consulted for MSU’s football team. 

Tucker made sexual comments and masturbated on a phone call with Tracy without her consent in April 2022, the investigation found. 

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Grand Rapids, names MSU, former interim president Teresa Woodruff, Athletic Director Allan Haller, general Counsel Brian Quinn and the Board of Trustees as defendants.

Tucker’s attorneys claim MSU officials were so eager to “preserve their positions and images” in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar scandal and other university controversies, that they hastily moved to fire Tucker when the USA Today story came out, without giving him due process.

“(T)he Individual Defendants acted in their own self-interest to avoid the fate of their predecessors who were dismissed or forced to resign in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar and the other scandals involving the University, including its athletics programs,” Tucker’s attorneys write. “Plaintiff - a man with an impeccable reputation and who had a long and promising career ahead of him - was the collateral damage caused by the Defendants' misguided effort to protect the University's reputation and, by so doing, preserve their image and positions at the top of the University's administration.”

The university's justification for firing Tucker before the sexual harassment investigation completed was that the conduct Tucker had already admitted to — having a sexual relationship with a university vendor — was grounds in itself to fire him, Haller said at the time.

The suit argues that MSU shouldn’t have pursued Tracy’s sexual harassment complaint at all.

Since Tracy was “unaffiliated” with the university and had minimal involvement with MSU’s football team, her harassment fell outside the jurisdiction of the university’s Title IX and Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct policy, the suit alleges.

MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said Tracy’s complaint was determined to be under MSU’s jurisdiction.

“(Tracy) was a vendor of the university,” Guerrant said. 

Tucker’s attorneys say he received harsher discipline than his white colleagues, “who, in the face of far more serious allegations, had no such similar action taken against them.”

The suit specifically points to a 2018 ESPN report that then-football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo oversaw multiple sexual assault allegations of members of their teams.

Then-Interim President John Engler defended Dantonio and Izzo at the time, a marked difference to how MSU’s administration treated Tucker after Tracy’s complaint, the suit argues.

The suit alleges Tucker was treated differently because he is Black.

Guerrant declined to comment on the discrimination allegation, saying she had yet to read the full lawsuit.

Tracy’s attorney, Karen Truszkowski, declined to comment on the lawsuit.