The Chronicle of Higher Education are FAKE NEWS Bigots and Liars and Frauds who were Happy to Destroy and Endanger the Life of an Innocent Civil Rights Activist for Moral Outrage Industry Profit

Sarah Braasch
14 min readJan 25, 2020

The Chronicle of Higher Education are FAKE NEWS Bigots and Liars and Frauds who were perfectly happy to tell disgusting lies about me and to destroy the life of an entirely innocent human and civil rights licensed attorney activist (me) for Moral Outrage Industry Profit and Gain.

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an absolute farce of a news report about me on January 8th, 2020, by Emma Dill. It is titled, “Student at Center of ‘Napping While Black’ Furor Lashes Out at Yale Officials and ‘Woke Intersectional Feminists’.”

I had actually sent a number of items to Kate Mangan, a Senior Reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education. I had been previously egregiously defamed by Kate Mangan in the Chronicle of Higher Education, but I have been releasing mountains of evidence that I am the entirely innocent victim of the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale, and I had high hopes that the Chronicle of Higher Education would be interested in correcting the record and doing right by me after they had participated in the global defamation campaign against me that sent me into hiding for over a year, almost resulted in my suicide, and destroyed my life and human and civil rights academic and legal careers.

Kate Mangan said that she was out on assignment, but that another reporter at CHE, Emma Dill, would reach out to me. I was wary of doing an interview, because, of course, of the way that my life had been burned in grotesque effigy by the worldwide press, and I felt that I had already supplied more than sufficient materials to Emma Dill, but I agreed to respond in writing to whatever questions she wished to ask. I submitted a five page response to her questions. I answered every single one. She used none of it. It seems clear to me now that she omitted the fact that I had supplied a five page response to her questions, and told her supervisors merely that I had declined to be interviewed, but agreed to answer questions by email. I consider this yet another one of her lies by omission, of which there are many in the article. Basically, she regurgitated the same tired lies about me as everyone else has been since May 8th, 2018, with ZERO regard for the truth, and ZERO regard for the truth of what I had actually written in my Medium essay that was a response to James Hatch’s viral Medium essay, My Semester with the Snowflakes. My Medium essay, which has also been very well received is titled, “My Six Years at Yale with the Woke Intersectional Feminists and How They Tried to Destroy Me.” She so grossly misrepresented even what I had myself written, that I consider this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education to be nothing but lies. I feel disgusted and betrayed. I am going to go through the piece line by line and expose the Chronicle of Higher Education as nothing but Bigots and Liars and Frauds and FAKE NEWS.

Let’s start with the disgusting title. Student at Center of ‘Napping While Black’ Furor Lashes Out at Yale Officials and ‘Woke Intersectional Feminists’.

Yet again, as so many others have done to me, when I am merely defending myself and telling the truth about what really happened during the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale, the Chronicle of Higher Education is trying to paint me as the perpetrator and the unhinged and violent and dangerous psychotic who is on the rampage and who is liable to physically attack someone, just like she did during the Napping While Black Furor, not Hate Crime Hoax, mind you, but Furor.

First of all, I am the least violent and least dangerous and least threatening person in the world. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Second, I find it absolutely disgusting and bigoted that the Chronicle of Higher Education is participating in what was and is a public campaign to shame me for my mental health disabilities. I was targeted, because of my mental health disabilities. Nothing could be more obvious from the video that Lolade Siyonbola took herself, without my knowledge or consent, on May 8th, 2018, of me standing in the threshold of my own isolated dorm room at the top of a tower on Yale’s campus at 2 am. The Chronicle of Higher Education should be ashamed of themselves. This is disgusting bigotry. And, there is more to follow in the body of the article.

Let’s begin with Emma Dill’s gross mischaracterization, to the point of untruthfulness, of how I describe a traumatizing event during the Spring of 2015 at Yale University, in the Philosophy Department. This is how Emma Dill of the Chronicle of Higher Education characterized the event:

“Braasch traces the attacks on her to 2015, when online searches turned up anti-LGBTQ comments a professorial candidate had previously made. After some students worked to keep the candidate from getting the job, Braasch told them they were violating his civil rights.”

In point of fact, when the philosophy department grad students went trolling online to dig up dirt on the job candidates for a tenure track Assistant Professor position, they found years old comments by our only POC job candidate, an Evangelical black man, on an explicitly Christian forum, in which he professes his Christian faith and adherence to Biblical scripture as Christian doctrine, including what he understands to be a prohibition on sodomy, which he interprets as including a prohibition on homosexual sex. That’s it. And, the philosophy department graduate students planned to disrupt his job talk with a protest. Discrimination during the hiring process on the basis of religion is a violation of Federal Civil Rights Law. To omit these points amounts to gross untruthfulness. Not to mention the fact that I have a lifetime of history of advocating for LGBTQ rights, and I considered myself to be an anti-religion advocate at the time that I stood up for the Federal Civil Rights of this Evangelical black man on Yale’s campus, our only POC job candidate. But, because of my deep commitment to civil libertarianism, I put my career at risk to stand up for what was right. And, I suffered greatly for having done so. I was socially ousted by the other graduate students in the philosophy department. The graduate students also tried to get me expelled. This was an incredibly painful experience for me, and I sought therapy and support at the mental health clinic at the student health center for the next approximately two or three years as a result. To omit these facts from the article, in an attempt to paint me as someone who is anti-LGBTQ and who had stood up for someone who is also anti-LGBTQ, is nothing less than gross untruthfulness. It is absolutely disgusting. Emma Dill should be ashamed of herself. The Chronicle of Higher Education should be ashamed of themselves to publish what amounts to sensationalized defamation, what amounts to a trashy gossip piece not worthy of the National Enquirer.

Then, Emma Dill grossly mischaracterizes the entire Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale. The lies by omission are stunning, to say the least. How this can be construed as adhering to any sense of journalistic ethics boggles the mind. Here is how she describes the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale:

“Then in 2018, Braasch called the campus police twice to report incidents involving black students. The first occurred in February, when she called to report her discomfort with a black student, Reneson Jean-Louis, standing in a stairwell near her dorm room.

“Three months later, she called campus police again to report Siyonbola, who had fallen asleep in a dormitory common room. After that, Braasch alleges, administrators “interrogated” her about views she had expressed in blog posts.”

I was in a state of absolute shock after reading this. The description of the February 24th, 2018 incident amounts to an outright disgusting lie. I did not call the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police to report my discomfort with a black student, because he was standing in the stairwell near my dorm room. I am still shocked reading this, that the Chronicle of Higher Education allowed this to be printed and published. I cannot even fathom how the Editors and fact checkers at the Chronicle of Higher Education can look themselves in the mirror and sleep at night after allowing this to be printed and published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

As I have made clear over and over and over again, I called the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police, widely regarded as more or less campus security, as I had been repeatedly instructed to do, for any reason whatsoever, because I was followed in an unauthorized manner, into the tower elevator of the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS), my Yale dormitory, and up to my isolated dorm room on the 12th floor of the tower of HGS, the only dorm room on that floor. This stranger, who was clearly not an HGS resident, appeared to me to be waiting for me to open my isolated dorm room door. He was standing right next to me, as the 12th floor landing is quite narrow. The entirety of the 12th floor of the tower of the Hall of Graduate Studies is a narrow landing between the only two rooms on that floor, my dorm room and the little used (and never used for studying) 12th floor common room, which is only accessible by resident key.

I tried to avoid a confrontation with this man, and I was not about to open my isolated dorm room door in front of a stranger who had followed me up to my isolated dorm room in violation of Yale Housing Regulations. I waited for a moment, in the hopes that he would either use his key to enter the 12th floor common room, but it was then clear that he was not a resident of HGS and that he had gained unauthorized access to the 12th floor of the HGS tower, or to knock on the 12th floor common room door and be granted entry by an HGS resident. I went down to the 11th floor, and then up a side stairway, into the 12th floor common room, which was dark and completely empty. It was not being used. There was no event taking place. I had hoped that the man had left, and I exited the 12th floor common room, and crossed the narrow 12th floor landing, to enter my dorm room safely, when the man, whom I had tried to avoid, and whom I had hoped had left, called out to me. I didn’t want to be rude, so I stopped to speak to him, and I explained to him that he needed to be a resident and have a key to gain access to the 12th floor common room, and I asked him to leave, if he was not authorized to be there. The man scoffed at me and turned to walk down the stairs after I said this to him. I decided to err on the side of caution and called the non emergency helpline of the Yale Campus Police, and the first thing I said to the officer who answered was that I wasn’t sure if I needed their assistance. The officer told me that he would send someone by, just in case, just to make sure that everything was ok. He also told me that the officer would come and speak to me, but that never happened.

To characterize the facts above as me calling the police, because I felt discomfort with a black male student standing in the hallway outside my dorm room is such an abominable, dastardly LIE, that I am still in shock that the Chronicle of Higher Education published this. This LIE can only be construed as meant to destroy me and endanger my life. I still receive death threats and threats of violence, including sexual violence. My human and civil rights academic and legal careers have been destroyed. I was subjected to a global vilification campaign, meant to publicly shame me for my mental health disabilities. That the Chronicle of Higher Education wishes to continue this defamation campaign that almost got me killed, in January, 2020, after the truth has come out about the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale, is beyond shocking. This is why the Chronicle of Higher Education are nothing but Bigots and Liars and FAKE NEWS Frauds.

As if that were not enough, then Emma Dill states merely the gross mischaracterization of what occurred on May 8th, 2018, as me calling the police on Lolade Siyonbola, because she fell asleep in a dormitory common room. I cannot even believe my eyes when I read this in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I don’t know how they dare call themselves journalists.

Of course, the Chronicle of Higher Education omits every pertinent fact about the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax. They omit the fact that the dormitory common room was the same little used 12th floor common room, the only other room, besides my isolated dorm room, on the 12th floor of the tower of the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS). They omit the fact that Lolade Siyonbola and Jean Louis Reneson falsely accused me of having perpetrated a racist hate crime comparable to a lynching on February 24th, 2018. They omit the fact that a group of Yale Deans subsequently formed a mob against me to publicly brand me a racist, to destroy my life and career. They omit the fact that I had been terrorized for months in my isolated dorm room and stalked across campus, presumably by the Yale students who harassed me on the evening of February 24th, 2018, because I had a reasonable concern for my personal safety and responded appropriately. They omit the fact that I had been begging the Yale Administration and Police for months to stop the harassment and stalking and attacks against me. They omit the fact that I had been harassed all evening by persons in the 12th floor common room. They omit the fact that when I accidentally happened upon Lolade Siyonbola in the 12th floor common room, a room I never would have entered if I had had any inkling that one of my harassers was still inside the room, she identified herself, to my mind, as being one of the persons who had been harassing and stalking me all evening, and, very likely, for months. I do not believe that she was napping. I do not believe that she was studying. I do not believe that she was writing papers. I believe that Lolade Siyonbola’s only purpose for being in the 12th floor common room on May 7th and 8th, 2018, was for the purpose of terrorizing me and for the purpose of catching me on video, in order to publicly shame me for my mental health disabilities and to exploit the apex of the Living While Black movement to destroy my life, because she had developed a sick obsession with me and a delusional personal vendetta against me. The Chronicle of Higher Education also neglects to mention that the video that Lolade Siyonbola took of me that evening, which was a gross violation of my privacy, was also very clearly meant as a public campaign to shame me for my mental health disabilities. Siyonbola makes it more than abundantly clear in the video that she took that she was targeting me due to my mental health disabilities. The Chronicle of Higher Education also fails to mention that Lolade Siyonbola continued to harass me AFTER the Yale Police Officers had left on May 8th, 2018, by slamming the elevator and 12th floor common room doors, over and over and over again.

To omit these facts is such a gross LIE by omission and such an egregious violation of journalistic ethics that it boggles the mind that the Chronicle of Higher Education dares refer to themselves as journalists and a news organization. A trashy online gossip rag is more like. A FAKE NEWS organization is more like it. I am still shocked that the Chronicle of Higher Education has not fully retracted this disgusting piece of FAKE NEWS as nothing but lies. I, of course, repeatedly demanded a full retraction.

But, unbelievably, there’s more. The Chronicle of Higher Education isn’t done telling disgusting lies about me yet.

This is what Emma Dill has to say about what I characterize as the Yale Administration grilling me over my decade old anti-oppression essays when I was a fairly popular essayist in the online world of secularism and free thought and atheism:

“After that, Braasch alleges, administrators “interrogated” her about views she had expressed in blog posts.”

To merely say this, without making clear what these views were, including what I now know to be my exclusive legal positivism as a legal theorist, among other perfectly respectable philosophical and legal positions, is a LIE by omission. It is clear that Emma Dill wishes to suggest that I must have abhorrent views that I am expressing online. Otherwise, why would the Yale Administration question me about my blog posts? She also fails to mention that these blog posts are a decade old and that these are very clearly anti-oppression essays. She also fails to mention that I had been dealing with the Yale Administration and Police during the entirety of the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax, and the fact that I regard the Yale Administration and Police as having been complicit in the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax. I begged the Yale Administration and Police to help me, but not only did they stand by and do nothing while I was being terrorized in my isolated dorm room for months and stalked across campus, but they actually assisted my tormentors in terrorizing me. Then, the Yale Administration and Police told disgusting lies about me in public statements to destroy my life and human and civil rights academic and legal careers, to cover up their own wrongdoing.

But, there are yet more flagrant lies in Emma Dill’s Chronicle of Higher Education piece.

Next, Emma Dill participates in the campaign to publicly shame me for my mental health disabilities, and to suggest that it was the fact that I’m mentally ill that I engaged in such egregiously racist behavior. She is also suggesting that I am using my mental health disabilities as something akin to an excuse for my grossly racist actions.

“Braasch wrote in the Medium essay that she struggles with mental-health illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, which she says contributed to the 2018 incidents.”

This is a disgusting LIE. I said nothing of the kind. I have repeatedly stated over and over and over again that I had a reasonable concern for my personal safety, and I responded appropriately thereto. I have repeatedly said that I was targeted for my mental health disabilities, including by the Yale Administration and Police, as well as my tormentors. I have repeatedly said that the Living or Napping While Black Hate Crime Hoax at Yale was a campaign to publicly shame me for my mental health disabilities.

But, Emma Dill isn’t done smearing me yet. She says that the reason why what I did grabbed headlines is because this is just one in a long line of grossly racist incidents in recent years. And, she calls in a so-called expert to chime in with stunning and gross bigotry.

Inexplicably, Kari Winter, a Professor at the University of Buffalo, seems to be saying that there is more social support for my perspective, because I’m a white woman, even though I had to go into hiding for more than a year, I was suicidal for more than a year, I have been globally vilified on an unimaginable scale, I now live in my own worst hellish nightmare, and my lifelong human and civil rights academic and legal careers have been destroyed, all because I was falsely accused of having perpetrated a racist hate crime comparable to a lynching by a black woman.

Then, what is even more perplexing is that Professor Winter says that students need to learn how to consider other perspectives, but not mine, apparently, I guess because I’m white.

This is such stunning bigotry and stupidity. I feel that this corroborates all of my claims that Woke Intersectional Feminism is bigotry and stupidity.

I will close by saying that I demand a full retraction of this disgusting piece of trash by the Chronicle of Higher Education. They should shutter themselves in abject shame for what they have done to me, a graduate student. It is beyond disgusting. This is an abomination.

I do intend to return to making videos regularly, so make sure to subscribe, like, comment, and share. Follow me on twitter and my blog.

If you wish to support me, as I seek justice, it would mean the world to me. Here are my PayPalMe and GoFundMe links.

PayPalMe: https://www.paypal.me/SarahBraasch

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/sarah-braasch-legal-fund

You can follow me on twitter here: https://twitter.com/sarahbraasch1?lang=en

Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4xV2R6mTVJhAu9OQzwp5g

--

--

Sarah Braasch

Rocket Scientist, NYS Attorney, Human and Civil Rights Activist, PhD Candidate in Philosophy at Yale, & Defender of Civil Liberties & Due Process & Free Speech