Family of slain Yale student sues university("failed to adequately protect women on campus")

AP-Yahoo! ^ | Sept. 6, 2011 | DAVE COLLINS

[greatdefender]

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The family of a Yale University graduate student killed in a research lab just days before she had planned to get married in 2009 sued the Ivy League school Tuesday, claiming it had failed to adequately protect women on campus for years.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in New Haven Superior Court by lawyers for the family of Annie Le, a 24-year-old Placerville, Calif., native whose strangled body was found stuffed upside-down in a wall at the Yale lab building on Sept. 13, 2009. That was the same day of her scheduled wedding and five days after she disappeared. Prosecutors also said there was evidence of a sexual assault.

Yale officials said in a statement Tuesday that the lawsuit had no merit and no additional security measures could have prevented the killing.

An animal research technician who worked in the same building, Raymond Clark III, was sentenced to 44 years in prison in June for murdering Le. He apologized for the crime at the sentencing hearing, but offered no explanation.

The lawsuit claims that before Le's killing, Yale had for years failed to take adequate steps to protect women on the New Haven campus. It also claims school officials should have known that Clark posed a potential danger to Le's safety, because he had previously demonstrated aggressive behavior and a "violent propensity towards women."

In April, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights confirmed that it was investigating complaints by Yale University students that the university had a sexually hostile environment and failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment concerns.

[greatdefender]

Typical liberal's mentality at its best!

[Da Coyote]

I wonder what would the results have been had she been packing heat?

(Not a certain change, but at least a good probablity of a different result.)

[MEGoody]

I know the parents are in pain, but suing the school (or anyone) isn’t going to bring their daughter back. Executing true justice on the perp is the only thing that might bring them some comfort.

[LadyDoc]

no, it’s poor security.

When I was in medical school, one of the women students was raped in a locker room when she went to change her clothing for a delivery at our university hospital. Because all the doctors were men, she had to go to the empty surgery locker room (an isolated area that they had made for the few female students), and a guy was hiding there.

After that happened, they increased security, mandating ID cards with photos for staff, and put up patrols of areas where women were working late, and hospitals that didn’t comply with these requests were told that the students should be sent home (by cab) at 11 pm.

That was 40 years ago. Yet we still hear of nurses being assaulted in hospital parking lots in many areas, and crimes against girls after hours as this was.

Sound like the universities need to do a similar safety check.

Yes, carrying a gun is helpful, but unless you are trained so you don’t panic, and unless you hear the danger coming, you might not be able to use it.