This website is called lawsuitagainstuconn.com, but it is not about money. It is an account of racial harassment which I experienced and this is my attempt to get the truth out about that harassment. I have more to lose than to gain by exposing this story, but I feel I must write this. The harassment was terrible, but I made it through somehow. Having done so I could go on and try to adjust to life after my experience with racism as if it never happened. By coming out this story will be known within my career path and outside as well which puts my chances at a career in peril. But, my hope is the truth of who I really am will be known and perhaps I can help keep this from happening to anyone else. That is my aim.

    My name is Sudhama Ranganathan. This website is devoted to what happened to me while I was working towards a degree at the University of Connecticut´s Landscape Architecture Department. While there some of the worst examples of racism I´ve been through occurred. I call this website lawsuitagainstuconn.com because my original intent was to get justice through the law system and planned to chronicle my fight on the web site, but I discovered I couldn´t afford a lawyer. My options became limited to getting justice by going public with my story. Despite the new publicity this would mean for me I decided to go forward.

    There isn´t much online as far as discrimination at UCONN is concerned. A local civil rights attorney told me this is because UCONN tends to settle out of court thereby erasing all traces of civil rights violations occurring on campus. UCONN has substantial resources at it’s disposal including the threat of the State’s Attorney General defending them. If you´re poor and can´t afford a lawyer the idea of pursuing them in court can feel like a lose - lose situation. The purpose of this website is not to get revenge against those who committed the harassment against me but to expose what happened so others might be aware of the possibility of it happening to them. Although I have graduated I still feel the pain from what I experienced at UCONN. I hope by sharing my story someone reading this might be helped.

    My mother is White, Christian and from England. My father,who passed away when I was 15 years old, was Indian, Hindu and from India. Me... I´m biracial. In 1990 when I was a senior in high school I became involved in planning peaceful political protests with some college students at Wesleyan University. We made the unfortunate choice to commit an act of protest in the form of arson on a Wesleyan University building as part of those protests. These actions were not religiously motivated just political. The arson was an act of property destruction meant to prove a political point. It was not an anti-American statement, just the misguided effort of American students to get equal treatment for American minorities.

    This was an act of student protest not terror. It was no act of war. In fact it was specifically planned not to physically harm anyone. As many disagreements as I had at the time with the powers that be, I still believed America was my country and the best country in the world. I looked into Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. None of them seemed to have the complete answer I was looking for. I didn´t even have a religious affiliation at that time.

     The summer following the arson I was caught and later convicted as an adult. I was a minor at the time I commited the arson and I cooperated with the government, but my crime was kept a matter of public record. Soon thereafter I became a Zen Buddhist which grounded me and give me a positive outlook on life. I eventually put down the partying, applied for school and was accepted to the University of Connecticut. By the time I entered UCONN at the age of 31 I was ready to go forward with a career and life.

    As relates to my harassment at UCONN one needs to understand I was never a Muslim terrorist period. I was scared just like every other American on September 11, 2001. I was referred to as a Muslim terrorist at UCONN in order to strike fear into the hearts of my fellow students based on the prejudices of certain professors. This was to isolate me by preying on racial fears and trying to connect what happened at Wesleyan University in 1990 to to the terrorist acts commited on 9/11. I want to see justice done for what happened on 9/11 like most other Americans. I also see that by trying to turn my fellow classmates against me by fomenting religious prejudices against Muslims the professors at UCONN who are responsible for the hostile envoronment displayed exactly what kind of people they are.

    No one from the government ever talked to me, called me or wrote me since my sentence for my conviction was served for any reason relating to terrorism extremism or anything of the like. No one from the school questioned me about my past involvement at Wesleyan University before my entering UCONN.There was no reason for the professors in The Landscape Architecture Department at UCONN to question me. Of course they could have just asked me if they were so concerned. They could have simply said my portfolio was not what they were looking for and turned down my application to their department. Instead they invited me in and then took the law into their own hands. They decided to become judge and jury. When confronted on it they lied and hid.

    Some of what occurred I outline in the What Happened page. By writing about what happened to me and coming forward I wish to encourage anyone else who has been harassed or discriminated against to collect evidence and expose the law breakers for the criminals they are. I also wish to highlight the extent to which racial and other forms of intolerance still permeate the landscape of American society. Subtle methods of racism are employed in order to keep the perpetrators from being caught. It is a form of cowardice and should not be tolerated any more than overt forms of discrimination, harassment, abuse, intolerance and racism.

    My only wish is to be able to sit down with the school and work this out to ensure it does not happen to anyone else. I have recieved letters questioning whether I am looking for a monetary settlement and here is a little clip as proof I am not.  I have even recieved a threatening phone call demanding I stop writing my story online or else. However, I have no ill will to the school on the whole and even route for the success of the UCONN mens and womens 2008 basketball teams Feel free to go over what happened to me and decide how you feel about it for yourself.