Susan Daria Landino, M.A.

Susan Daria Landino attended Manhattanville College, Oxford University and earned her graduate degree from the University of Connecticut. She worked in news broadcasting and the entertainment industry in Los Angeles before switching gears to pursue a graduate degree and began working in the vice president’s office at Yale University in 1999.

Landino, along with co-relators has filed a legal complaint against Yale University employing the False Claims Act mandate to hold organizations accountable to uphold federal laws when receiving federal funds. In this case, the complaint alleges that Yale University deliberately disregarded Title IX civil rights while receiving billions in federal funds. Landino developed the case while assisting dozens of university community members enduring discrimination, gender violence and retaliation as single plaintiffs. This legal remedy affords strength by allowing plaintiffs to come together.

Earlier in her career Landino witnessed illegal activities that impacted students’ civil rights in the aftermath of sexual assault and harassment and caught the Yale University falsifying crime statistics. Landino tried to change university culture according to Title IX and the Clery Act with programs to protect students. Yale leadership thwarted the development of these programs, and she experienced retaliation for her efforts to support Title IX – demotions, humiliation by email, isolation from colleagues, and workplace violence. Landino could not secure another on campus job after applying to over 100 jobs to escape the retaliation from the vice president’s office. Ultimately, Landino was marched off campus like a criminal having done nothing wrong and filed the first non-sports-related Jackson v Birmingham Title IX retaliation complaint, Burhans v Yale, written by Victim’s Rights attorney Wendy Murphy and supported by the American Association of University Women. Yale was also fined for falsifying crime stats by the Department of Education.

In concert with her activism assisting dozens of female scholars experiencing gender harassment and retaliation, Landino has founded Allies Reaching for Equality to support intersectional populations navigating inequities linked to Title IX non-compliance affecting access to education.