Below please find my then attorney’s response to Yale President Peter Salovey’s grossly false and defamatory August Statement about me. I know for a fact that persons inside Yale tried to stop President Salovey from releasing this statement. I know for a fact that they tried to tell him how immoral and wrongful and illegal and false and defamatory it was. I know for a fact that they tried to tell him that he was lying and putting my life in grave danger by releasing this grossly false and defamatory statement.
I want to make perfectly clear that the Yale Administration and the Yale Campus Police always knew, from the very beginning, that I was entirely innocent of the false accusations against me. The Yale Administration and the Yale Campus Police were complicit, from the beginning, in the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale.
Please note in this letter that my attorney makes clear that Yale’s General Counsel admitted that there was absolutely no reason to think that I had EVER acted out of racial animus or bias in any way, shape, or form. My attorney also makes clear that Yale’s General Counsel had dropped the racial component of the disciplinary charges against me entirely. I do want to point out that my then attorney later told me that Yale’s General Counsel later denied having dropped the racial component of the disciplinary charges. But, they never denied having admitted that there was no reason whatsoever to think that I had ever acted out of racial animus or bias in any way, shape, or form. Here is the letter:
August 2, 2018
Susan Sawyer, Sr. Associate General Counsel
Office of the General Counsel
2 Whitney Avenue
New Haven, CT 06510-1220
Re: Sarah Braasch
Dear Attorney Sawyer:
While I support Yale’s long overdue efforts to combat discrimination on its campus, I am nothing short of shocked by President Peter Salovey’s reckless and wholly irresponsible act of condemning my client as a racist in a university-wide memo yesterday. The damage to my client is incalculable. President Salovey recklessly concluded that the May 8th incident involving my client’s call to the Yale campus police was motivated by racial animus while clearly ignoring the facts and circumstances well within Yale’s knowledge, particularly her ongoing complaints in writing and to the Title IX Coordinators of harassment following a February 24th incident prompting the May 8th call. You told me that Yale was not charging my client with racial harassment and knew this was not an act of microaggression. You reported that Yale professors who know Ms. Braasch vouched that she is not in any way racist and have been very supportive of her and her history as a social justice warrior. (I’ve attached letters from Yale professors to this effect as well.) Nevertheless, in advance of her response to the non-race based harassment charges and any hearing on the charge, Yale’s President saw fit to label her actions racially based and use her alleged “race based” harassment as impetus for sweeping changes to Yale’s practices and policies.
Insodoing Yale has completely violated my client’s right to due process; she has been judged and convicted without a hearing. Yale has precluded even the possibility of a fair hearing and further defamed my client without ever hearing her defense which, as you will recall, was purposefully delayed by Yale in light of her fragile emotional state in keeping ADA guidelines. Yale’s actions toward my client are reprehensible and actionable.
President Salovey’s action is all the more egregious in light of my client’s mental health disabilities. Yale has been acutely aware of my client’s current fragile state and suicidal ideation as a result of the social media war erroneously and unfairly waged against her by a Yale student who misinterpreted her actions. As a result of President Salovey’s memo, Yale has placed my client at an increased risk for suicide and has exacerbated her anxiety and depression.
Yale has breached also its contract with my client as specifically provided in the Graduate School’s Code of Conduct stating, “A student accused of a breach of the Regulations will be presumed innocent unless and until found by the Dean’s Advisory Committee on Regulations and Discipline, pursuant to these procedures, to have breached the Regulations. “ Clearly, my client has had no such presumption of innocence and arguably has been discriminated against under the ADA.
As a result, I immediately demand the following that:
- Yale immediately dismiss all disciplinary proceedings against my client;
- Yale release all body cam videos to the media with advance notice to me of the release date;
- Yale issue a public apology to my client for concluding that she acted with any racial animus in connection with these incidences, and that all the evidence known to Yale suggests otherwise; and
- That Yale publicly announce that Ms. Braasch has been publicly misrepresented as engaging in discriminatory misconduct. Indeed her work at Yale and beyond evidence that she harbors no racial animus whatsoever. To the contrary, she has dedicated herself to causes of social justice including the cause of eradicating all forms of discrimination.
I expect a response from you in short order.
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