A Message to Students from Dr. Mark A. Brown

The original Constant Contact email, fetched and read directly (not via WSFA’s photograph of a printed copy). Salutation: “Dear Tuskegee University Students.” Confirms the letter’s full second-person text, including the sentence most secondhand coverage dropped: “Employers are less forgiving and too often presentation may overrule stellar preparation.” Confirms the sentence a WR draft had previously skipped, sitting between two sentences it did quote: “The Student Handbook requires students to arrive on campus with a business suit and proper shoes for a business meeting.” Also confirms the letter references three attached policy documents (dress code, cell phone, attendance) rather than stating enforcement or scope in full itself.

Note on distribution: the salutation addresses students. What the document itself cannot establish is who Tuskegee’s Constant Contact list actually delivered the email to — a “Dear Students” salutation does not by itself prove the send list excluded parents. Multiple outlets (HBCU Gameday, HBCU Buzz, ThyBlackMan) independently reported it as a letter to parents of incoming students. That is a real discrepancy between the document’s salutation and its reported distribution, not a resolved contradiction.