Family of Murdered Graduate Student Files Lawsuit Against Yale University

In September 2008, Annie Le, a third-year doctoral student in pharmacology at Yale University, was murdered as she worked in a campus laboratory.

Now her parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university and the Yale School of Medicine. The suit alleges that “sexual attacks on harassment of women at Yale had been a well-documented and long-standing problem, and there was a widespread belief that Yale repeatedly failed to impose meaningful discipline on offenders.”

Attorneys for Le’s family stated that the university had “taken inadequate steps to ensure the safety and security of women on campus. Yale’s persistent tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assaults on campus caused students to file a Title IX complaint against Yale University. And, just five days before she was to be married, Annie Le was a victim of that environment.”

In a statement, Yale said there was no basis for the suit and that “no reasonable security measures could have prevented this unforeseeable act.”