Michigan’s School Of Music Fires Professor Charged For Sexual Assault, Denies Severance Pay

The University of Michigan's Board of Regents on Thursday voted unanimously to fire a music professor and noted opera singer who was accused of sexually assaulting a singer in Houston 10 years ago.

David Daniels, 52, was fired from his role as professor of voice at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance, in Ann Arbor.

“When a tenured faculty member is accused of misconduct, it is a matter the Board of Regents takes very seriously,” said Regent Ron Weiser, chair of the Board of Regents.

According to charging documents filed by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Texas, Daniels and his spouse Williams Scott Walters drugged and raped the singer in 2010. The couple was arrested in January on charges of sexual assault, as well as soliciting sex from students.

“This is the first time under the current Bylaw 5.09, enacted more than 60 years ago, that the board has been faced with voting to dismiss a tenured member of the faculty,” Weiser added. The meeting was held online due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The singer, Samuel Schultz, was a graduate student at Rice University in Houston, who went public with his accusations in August 2018.

Schultz said Daniels and Walters had assaulted him when he had gone to hear the former in Handel’s “Xerxes” at Houston Grand Opera.

After the performance and cast party, Schultz was invited to Daniels’s apartment, where, he was given a drink that caused him to lose his consciousness. He woke up the next morning alone, naked and bleeding from his rectum.

The university was strongly criticized for keeping Daniels on its payroll, although he was on administrative leave since August 2018.

According to an internal investigation conducted in the university, the board was convinced that Daniels harassed 20 students, including soliciting sex and sending nude photos. Daniels, however, denied these allegations.

President Mark Schlissel was the one who made a recommendation for Daniels's dismissal to the Board of Regents.

“I have determined that Professor Daniels’ conduct is inconsistent with the character of tenure at the University of Michigan and therefore constitutes cause for dismissal under Bylaw 5.09-1,” Schlissel said in his recommendation.

The board also agreed to Schlissel's recommendation to deny Daniels’s severance pay.