Annie Le
This undated handout image, provided by the New Haven Police Department on September 18, 2009, shows a family photograph of Yale graduate student Annie Le whose murdered body was found in the basement of a campus laboratory building. Raymond Clark, a lab technician who worked in the same building, has been arrested for the crime. REUTERS

The family of murdered Yale student Annie Le is suing the university for allegedly failing to protect its female population.

Le was killed on Sept. 8, 2009. She was to be married a few days later on Sept. 13.

Yale had long taken inadequate steps to ensure the safety and security of women on its campus, attorney Joseph Tacopina said in an e-mail statement on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Sexual attacks on and 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, the lawsuit stated, Reuters reported.

Le was a 24-year-old student in the Yale School of Medicine and did experiments in a lab. She was killed by Raymond Clark, a technician who cleaned mouse cages in the lab building.

Le was seen entering the building on a security camera, but not coming out. Her body was found in a building wall.

Clark admitted to strangling Le and pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 44 years in prison back in June.

Annie was and will always be a wonderful person, by far a better person than I will ever be in my life, Clark said after his sentencing, the Hartford Courant reported.

A Yale spokesperson defended the university and said it had no evidence to prove that Clark would have committed such a crime and that no reasonable security measures could have prevented his attack and murder of Le, the Yale Daily News reported.

Le's family, however, sees it differently.

As a result of the negligence of Yale, Ms. Le suffered a loss in her ability to enjoy all of her life's activities, including but not limited to her wedding and marriage, the complaint stated, Reuters reported.

New Haven, the city in which Yale is located, is frequently listed as one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. Earlier this year, the magazine The Atlantic listed New Haven as the fourth most dangerous city in the country based on FBI crime statistics.

The magazine noted that New Haven has the fourth highest rate of assault in the country.

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