Below please find the primary text of my appeal to the Federal Office for Civil Rights, asking them to open an investigation into Yale University’s gross violations of civil rights law during the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax:
The OCR’s letter dismissing the complaint only indicates that I am alleging that University Officials harassed me and retaliated against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age, AFTER May 8th, 2018. This is incorrect. I am alleging that University Officials and the Campus Police harassed me and retaliated against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age, BETWEEN AND ON the dates of February 24th, 2018, and May 8th, 2018.
I am explicitly alleging that University Officials and the Yale Campus Police participated in the harassment and retaliation against me on and between these dates, and that University Officials and the Campus Police assisted my attackers, Lolade Siyonbola and Jean Louis Reneson, and others, in harassing me and retaliating against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age between and on these dates.
This is made clear in the illegal video recording of me, made on May 8th, 2018, which was widely distributed around the world to shame me for my mental health disabilty, when my attacker, Lolade Siyonbola, repeatedly states that I’m psychotic and crazy and that I should be put in a mental institution, and repeatedly states that Yale knows that I’m psychotic and crazy and that I should be put in a mental institution. I was being targeted as the victim of harassment and retaliation on the basis of my mental health disability by both my student and Resident Coordinator attackers AND University Officials AND the Campus Police. The illegal video recording of me makes more than clear that my attacker was intimately familiar with who I was. She knew all of these personal details of my life, even though she had never met me, because Yale was illegally feeding her my personal information, including my mental health history, a fact which she also makes clear in the illegally recorded and distributed video. Additionally, Provost Stephanie Spangler accidentally revealed to me when I met with her in March & April, 2018, that Yale was illegally feeding my personal information to my attackers, including my name and my mental health history.
I am alleging that, as told to me by Housing Director George Longyear on March 2nd, 2018, Yale Deans, including Grad School Dean Lynn Cooley and Grad School Diversity Dean Michelle Nearon, and others, harassed and retaliated against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age, between the dates of February 24th, and March 2nd, 2018, and that this harassment and retaliation continued thereafter and continues to this day.
By March 2nd, 2018, I had been fully exonerated by the Housing Managers for the February 24th, 2018 incident. The Housing Managers told me that not only had I done absolutely nothing wrong, but that I was the only person involved who had done nothing wrong. Moreover, I was the person who was terrorized in my isolated dorm room on the evening of February 24th, 2018. The Deans who harassed and retaliated against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age thereafter knew that I was entirely innocent of racial harassment. They were not harassing me and retaliating against me, because they believed that I had been accused of or had perpetrated racial harassment. They were harassing me and retaliating against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age. This harassment and retaliation took the form of them determining that I should participate in a town hall, during which I was supposed to publicly declare myself a racist, as well as undergo implicit bias training. This harassment and retaliation also took the form of them spreading across campus that I was guilty of racial harassment, as was told me by the Housing Director, when he told me that the allegations against me were “going around” and “gaining traction,” including by a group of Deans. I experienced walking across campus on multiple occasions and overhearing myself being discussed as a racist who should be kicked off campus and thrown out of school. I am alleging that these Deans desired to publicly brand me a racist to destroy my lifelong career as a human and civil rights licensed attorney activist to harass and retaliate against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age.
I am alleging that when Grad School Diversity Dean Michelle Nearon told me, via email, that not only did she have no interest in addressing the fact that I had been and was still being harassed and stalked on campus on the basis of race, disability, sex, and age, but also that if I had any concerns for my personal safety on campus that I should move out of my home and leave campus, that this was harassment and retaliation against me on the basis of race, disability, sex, and age. I told Dean Nearon as much via email. I am alleging that after I threatened to take civil legal action to protect my rights and interests, Dean Michelle Nearon’s refusal to meet with me on the record and refusal to work with me in writing and refusal to help me restore my good name and reputation on campus, while I was being defamed across campus as guilty of racial harassment, was harassment and retaliation against me on the basis of race, disability, sex, and age. I told Dean Nearon as much via email.
I am alleging that the Administration’s and the Campus Police’s refusals to do anything to protect me and to make me safe in my isolated dorm room and on campus BETWEEN February 24th, 2018, and May 8th, 2018, was harassment and retaliation on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age. They knew who my attackers were, and they not only did nothing to stop them, but they also assisted my attackers in harassing me and retaliating against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age.
Yale’s recent farcical Title VI Review Report, which further defames me and is a further instance of retaliation and harassment against me on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age does clarify the follow: “Race-based D&H falls under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . universities receiving federal funds cannot discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, color or national origin, either directly or indirectly.” This means that the Administration’s and the Campus Police’s outright refusals to do anything about the harassment and stalking that I was enduring in my dorm room in on campus housing and as I walked across campus was itself harassment and retaliation on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age.
I am alleging that after I threatened to take civil legal action to protect my rights and interests, Yale General Counsel Attorney Caroline Hendel’s refusal to help me in any way, and her insistence that I deal with Dean Nearon, after I told Attorney Hendel that I believed Dean Nearon was in gross violation of Title IX and ADA regulations, and after I told her that Dean Nearon had expressed callous disregard for my personal safety on campus, was harassment and retaliation against me on the basis of race, disability, sex, and age. I told Attorney Hendel as much via email. This occurred in March, 2018.
I also wish to make clear that the Yale Campus Police Department considers itself a private force hired by Yale University, and they often attempt to circumvent their obligations to the general public by claiming such, including FOIA requests. They are agents of Yale University. As such, given that Yale University receives federal funding, the Campus Police cannot discriminate on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age. I am alleging that the Campus Police grossly discriminated and harassed and retaliated against me on the basis of race, age, disability, and sex, as I detailed in my original complaint to the OCR. The OCR should open an investigation into the illegal acts of the Campus Police. The OCR’s letter dismissing the complaint failed to address any of these gross violations.
The OCR’s letter dismissing the complaint claims that the harassment and stalking and retaliation and discrimination that I have endured from students, Resident Coordinators, University Officials, and the Campus Police, cannot be taken to have been on the basis of race, sex, disability, or age, because this is too speculative. Frankly, I find this claim to be preposterous. First and foremost, as I made clear above, the harassment, discrimination, and retaliation need not be direct; it may be indirect as well. I am alleging both direct and indirect harassment, stalking, discrimination, and retaliation on the part of students, Resident Coordinators, University Officials, and the Campus Police.
It could not be clearer that I was being harassed and stalked, in my dorm room and as I walked across campus, on the basis of my mental health disability. As I mention above, the illegal video recording of me on May 8th, 2018, makes this more than clear. Additionally, my attackers made it more than clear in their global defamation campaign that they waged against me immediately following the May 8th, 2018 incident, that they had always been targeting me due to my mental health disability, and that Yale was not only aware of this fact, but that the Yale Administration also assisted them in their efforts. For the OCR to state that it’s too speculative to infer that I was being targeted on the basis of my mental health disability by students, Resident Coordinators, University Officials, and the Yale Campus Police, both directly and indirectly, is ludicrous.
On February 24th, 2018, I made clear to my attacker, Jean Louis Reneson, that I was asking him to leave, because I was a woman, alone, and he had followed me up to my isolated dorm room to gain unauthorized access to the 12thfloor of the tower of the Hall of Graduate Studies. I could not have made this clearer. It was out of concern for my personal safety, as a woman living alone in an isolated dorm room, that I called the non-emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police on February 24th, 2018. I could not have made this fact clearer to everyone involved, including the Yale Administration, Yale Housing, and the Yale Campus Police. This fact is reiterated in my Yale Campus Police report dated March 9th, 2018, and filed with Yale Campus Police Officer Grace Schenkle. Again, the Housing Managers investigated the February 24th, 2018 incident and fully exonerated me. They told me that they would discipline the Resident Coordinators for not having handled the situation properly. I am repeating these facts, because I want to make clear that the students involved, the Resident Coordinators, the University Officials, and the Yale Campus Police Department harassed and stalked me, discriminated against me, and retaliated against me, not because they believed that I had been accused of or had perpetrated racial harassment, but due to my race, sex, disability, and age. Everyone knew that I had NOT perpetrated racial harassment. I was being harassed and stalked and attacked, discriminated and retaliated against, because I had dared to assert my rights to be safe on Yale’s campus, as an older, disabled woman, by telling a man who had followed me up to my isolated dorm room, and who had clearly gained unauthorized access thereto, to leave, and because I had called the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police, and because I had taken reasonable precautions to enter my dorm room safely. And, moreover, I was being discriminated and retaliated against, by University Officials, when I asserted that they were in gross violation of Federal Civil Rights Laws by engaging in such discrimination and retaliation and direct and indirect harassment and stalking and attacks. (As I made clear in my complaint to the OCR, the Yale Administration jumped at the chance to expel me again, as they had tried to do in Spring, 2015.)
I made clear to Yale Housing, the Yale Administration, and the Yale Campus Police Department that I had grave concerns that Yale was taking the position that an older, disabled woman who lives alone in an isolated dorm room in Yale’s on campus graduate student housing does not have the right to take reasonable precautions to ensure that she can enter her isolated dorm room safely; that she does not have the right to tell a man who followed her up to her isolated dorm room to gain unauthorized access thereto to leave; that she does not have the right to call the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police when she is followed by a man up to her isolated dorm room, a man who had clearly gained unauthorized access thereto. The notion that it is too speculative to infer that I was being discriminated against, harassed and stalked, and retaliated against on the basis of sex is preposterous.
I made clear to Dean Nearon via email that I took her refusals to address the harassment and stalking and attacks against me as gross violations of Title IX and the ADA. I made clear to Attorney Hendel that I took her refusals to address the harassment and stalking and attacks against me as gross violations of Title IX and the ADA, as well as her insistence that I deal with Dean Nearon, after I had made clear that I believed Dean Nearon to be in gross violation of Title IX and the ADA. I made clear to Provost Spangler and Associate Provost Cynthia Smith and Yale Campus Police Chief Ronnell Higgins that I took Dean Nearon and Attorney Hendel and Sergeant Robbins-Hoffman and Yale Housing and the Yale Campus Police Department to be in gross violation of Title IX and the ADA. The notion that it is too speculative to infer that I was being discriminated against, harassed and stalked and attacked, and retaliated against on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age is preposterous.
Moreover, the May 8th, 2018 incident and subsequent global defamation campaign against me took place at the apex of the Living While Black movement. It is more than clear from the statements of my attackers subsequent to the May 8th, 2018 incident, as well as the statements of University Officials, that they had every intention of taking full advantage of the Living While Black narrative to destroy my life and career, as well as drive me to suicide and incite my murder. They, including University Officials, had every intention of globally and publicly branding me a racist, not because they knew that I had been accused of or had perpetrated racial harassment, but to target me for my race, sex, diability, and age. For the OCR to suggest that it is too speculative to infer that I was harassed and stalked and attacked, and discriminated and retaliated against, including by University Officials and the Yale Campus Police department, on the basis of race, sex, disability, and age, is, quite frankly, preposterous. Quite frankly, I was the victim of a hate crime hoax, and the Yale Administration and the Yale Campus Police were complicit.
Finally, the OCR’s statement that I was not engaged in a protected activity is preposterous. I was very clearly engaged in a protected activity, was a member of multiple protected classes, was being targeted because of my membership in those protected classes, and suffered adverse actions by Yale University, which adversely affected my ability to participate in those protected activities. The OCR claims that being accused of having perpetrated racial harassment is not a protected activity. The notion that this was the protected activity in which I was engaged is ludicrous. Clearly, I was engaged in the protected activity of studying, living, and working on Yale’s campus, as an older, disabled white woman. Clearly, the protected activity I was engaged in was walking across campus while being free from discrimination and harassment and stalking and attacks on the basis of my race, sex, disability, and age. Clearly, I was engaged in the protected activity of living in Yale’s on campus housing while being free from discrimination and harassment and stalking and attacks and retaliation on the basis of my race, sex, disability, and age. Clearly, I was engaged in the protected activity of having the right to tell a man who had followed me up to my isolated dorm room and gained unauthorized access thereto to leave. Clearly, I was engaged in the protected activity of having the right to call the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police after having been followed up to my isolated dorm room by a man who had clearly gained unauthorized access thereto. Clearly, I was engaged in the protected activity of pursuing my academic and occupational goals as a graduate student at Yale University without being attacked and harassed and discriminated against and retaliated against by University Officials and the Yale Campus Police department on the basis of race, age, disability, and sex.
I suffered untold adverse actions by University Officials and the Yale Campus Police Department. They destroyed my life and career. They ruined my reputation and livelihood. They almost drove me to suicide and almost incited my murder. They made grossly false and wrongful and defamatory public statements about me. They wrongfully charged me with racial harassment, even though they knew I was entirely innocent, and they did this due to my race, sex, disability, and age. They wrongfully banned me from campus. They wrongfully banned me from teaching at Yale. I will not now be able to complete a crucial component of my dissertation – the empirical social psychological study on the nature of authority and the nature of the relationship between authority and legitimacy. These bans remain in effect to this day. I almost died, because of what they did to me. I will never be able to secure gainful employment. I will never be able to support myself. My human and civil rights and legal and academic careers are over, through no fault of my own. My life has been completely and utterly devastated, because of what they did to me, and I am asking the Federal Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation at Yale University for these reasons. Please do the right thing and help me.
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