DETROIT (AP) — A choose dismissed a lawsuit Monday by an acclaimed opera singer who sued the College of Michigan over his firing for what the varsity deemed sexual misconduct.
David Daniels waited too lengthy to sue the college, U.S. District Choose Sean Cox mentioned.
Daniels, 58, was employed as a voice professor in 2015 and granted tenure three years later within the College of Music, Theatre & Dance. He was fired in 2020 after an investigation discovered that he had solicited not less than three college students and shared a sexually specific video with one, officers mentioned.
Individually, Daniels and and his husband, Scott Walters, pleaded responsible in 2023 to sexual assault and have been positioned on probation in Texas. A Rice College graduate pupil mentioned the couple drugged and sexually assaulted him years earlier after they met at a Houston Grand Opera reception.
Daniels claimed that his rights have been violated throughout the course of that led to his College of Michigan firing. The varsity denied it and famous that he had been represented by a lawyer.
In a court docket submitting, the college mentioned ready greater than three years to sue was “inexcusable neglect” by Daniels or a “strategic decision.”
Daniels’ lawyer, Francyne Stacey, mentioned the felony case in Texas offered “exceptional circumstances.”
Daniels additionally sued a pupil who had accused him of sexual misconduct. Cox, a federal choose, dismissed these claims, too, saying they have been primarily based on state legislation, not federal legislation.
Daniels has carried out on the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Francisco Opera.
