Dharun Ravi Found Guilty - Facing 10 Years in Prison

Today a jury has found Dharun Ravi guilty of intimidation, spying, and witness tampering among other charges in the events that led up to the death of Tyler Clementi.  Clementi was an 18 year gay college student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after a tape of him kissing another man was streamed and commented upon on twitter.  This case had garnered national attention about cyber-bullying and gay-bashing among teenagers.  

What hasn't been made clear in much of the news coverage is that Tyler was out of the closet.  He told his family that he was gay.  Ravi had also met his boyfriend before the taping took place on one previous occasion.  A text that was sent to Tyler around the time he jumped from Ravi said the following:

"I've known you were gay and I have no problem with it. In fact one of my closest friends is gay and he and I have a very open relationship. I just suspected you were shy about it which is why I never broached the topic. I don't want your freshman year to be ruined because of a petty misunderstanding, it's adding to my guilt. You have a right to move if you wish but I don't want you to feel pressured to without fully understanding the situation." 

No one knows if Tyler read the text before he jumped to his death.   


There are also other parts of this story that are not getting a great deal of media attention.  One being that his mother was having a difficult time accepting her son being gay.  She was saddened to learn that he wouldn't be getting married and starting a family. She loved her son and wanted to be part of his life, but her dreams for him were not going to be as she had envisioned.  She needed some time to make that adjustment.  Another point that isn't getting enough media coverage in all of this is the fact that the school bears some responsibility in this death as well.  


Tyler went through the proper channels to get a room change.  While it isn't easy to change rooms once a semester is underway, it would seem to me that they could have at least tried harder to understand that boy's discomfort with living with a guy that was spying on him.  It wouldn't have been any more pleasant had the video showed him kissing a girl.  The act of his privacy being invaded doing something so personal is enough that they should have realized that these two young men could no longer share a room.  I would also think that the school would have been justified in kicking him out of the dorms for what he did.  


Tyler didn't leave an explanation as to what motivated him to take his own life.  Was it his mother's disappointment?  Was the fact that people at school had confirmation that he was gay, or was it the school not being willing to help him get out of his living with someone who was spying on him that made him think that jumping off that bridge was the better alternative?  We will never know since he is not here to answer those questions.  But we do know that none of these things were something so terrible that he couldn't have gotten beyond them had he given it some time.   


What we also do know is that a young man will be facing 10 years in prison for a hate crime that it seems to me wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  Don't get me wrong, he needed to be charged with a crime.  But I am not sure that him spending his 20's in prison is an effective use of our resources.  


This case is indicative of why I find hate crimes to be a bad idea.  You can not ever know for sure what is in someone elses heart and mind at any given moment.  Tyler's death is a tragedy, we just compounded it by this outcome.  


I hope that Tyler's family can get a measure of peace now that this trial is over.  

Gay Bashers, Cyber Bullies or Just Stupid? Rutgers Student Dead

Tyler Clementi is dead.  A young man just starting out his life jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.  Tyler had learned that his roommate and his friend had secretly had been videotaping his room and released a video of him engaging in a sexual encounter with another young man.  Clementi went to his RA and the only help he received was being told to call a gay hot line.  Those are things that we know. 

Gay rights advocates have jumped all over this as a case of gay bashing.  Bullying experts has also jumped all over this case as well.  We don't know if either of these are actually the case. There is so much we don't know. 

Was this Tyler's first gay encounter?  Did his parent's know he was gay?  Was what Ravi and Wei doing really bullying?  Did Tyler have issues with depression in the past?  None of the people who are commenting on this story can say. 

I think it is pretty safe to say that everyone one of us have gone through an experience while in college or high school that was completely humiliating that we at that moment thought we would never recover from.   But if you are reading this, you obviously did recover.  To take it to the level of jumping off a bridge that in almost all cases will result in the end of your life, is an extreme.  We don't know why he decided to take it to that extreme. 

Depression is a very serious illness that sometimes leads to death; not all of which are suicides either.  In many cases depression leads to a myriad of other types of risky behavior that cause death; such as drunk driving.  Was Tyler hiding his homosexuality from his parents or was he hiding his depression problems?  We just don't know. 

Was what put him over the edge was that no one at Rutgers seemed to be willing to help him?  It would seem to me that Rutgers actions need to be looked at in this situation as well.  This young man, only a month away from his parents home went to someone for help and was not given any that really addressed the problem.  He was being spied on by someone he was being forced to live with.  Why didn't the RA immediately not take action to find another living situation for this young man? 

We as a society need to stop trying to find immediate and simple answers to very complex problems and issues.  We have no absolute knowledge of what Ravi was trying to accomplish with his tweet and video.  Are those two kids homophobic or are do they just have a bizarre sense of humor?  Again we don't know.  There are many things that are pretty clear cut when he hear about them.  This is a case when it is not.  By everyone jumping to conclusions that the evidence has yet to be able to support we are doing exactly what all three of these kids have done.  Tyler felt his life was over, when it would have gone on, Ravi and Wei never bothered to think about anyone but their own enjoyment when invading that boy's privacy.  A selfish act if there ever was one and look at how well that turned out. 

The only things that I think all can agree upon is the fact that two 18 year old kids will now have to live with what they have done for the rest of their lives.  A family will now have to deal with the lost of a child.  Something that will not be easy for any of them.