Hearing that he was ruled guilty of 15 counts of privacy invasion and investigation tampering, Dharun Ravi appeared unmoved as he sat in the New Jersey court on March 16, 2012. Yet when found guilty of bias intimidation, as well, Ravi's eyes bulged in disbelief. The former roommate of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers University freshman who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, 2010, appeared genuinely surprised when found guilty of a hate crime. His earlier refusal of a guilty plea bargain on that count, which would have included probation and 600 hours of community service, proved short-sighted. He now faces up to 10 years in prison and potential deportation to his native India.
Ravi had gambled that his jury would understand that he suffered more from "boorish immaturity" than from homophobic hate. No one reading his indelible trail of social media, which show Ravi glibly ridiculing his shy, gay roommate and inviting others to watch, or hearing his statements after his conviction, where he casually refers to Clementi's "troubles," would doubt his tastelessness.
Ravi bullied and humiliated his roommate of three weeks, bragged about it, and then returned for a second viewing. Clementi, meanwhile, had been proactive in telling his dorm RA about the events, and requesting a room change. But in the end, he left a long note, drove to the George Washington Bridge, and posted from his cell phone on Facebook: "jumping off the gw bridge sorry." Ravi is guilty of a hate crime, but not of killing Clementi, who might have been saved, had the university, his family, and his community been better-educated about integrating gay community members. (Read my comments on the tragic loss of Clementi last year here.)
Surely universities devote a great amount of effort to determining and encouraging roommate compatibility and offer a plethora of tolerance training programs. Long before Clementi's death, Rutgers had instituted an LGBT tolerance program, "Project Civility," also aimed at new dorm students. Obviously, this well-intentioned intervention proved inadequate. In the wake of Clementi's suicide, Rutgers is now offering a gender-neutral dorm, which was originally conceived for transgender students but has developed into a unique option of pairing LGBT students with a member of the opposite sex who is also LGBT or who has expressed an understanding of LGBT issues. Everywhere, roommate selection is undergoing changes.
All these efforts need to go one step further and consider possible inventions to help students who come from backgrounds where attitudes may lack the norms of tolerance expected at universities. Central to the Clementi tragedy is the encounter between a straight immigrant student and a gay American, abandoned to the perils of freshman coexistence without proper preparation for either of them. Clementi felt roundly rebuffed by his evangelical mother -- although though she denies having rejected him. Even the solidarity of his gay older brother, James Clementi, proved insufficient. Meanwhile, some observers in the Indian community asked whether Indian culture needs to confront its own homophobia. This question itself provoked charges of intolerance.
Yet questions about cultural difference are worth asking, for a significant part of the problem lies in the confrontation between private traditional beliefs and public life, where the dorm room proves to be a strangely private sphere in the resolutely public, liberal environment of the university. Students come from every walk of life and every corner of the planet and are suddenly expected to brush their teeth, bathe, sleep, socialize, and learn in an intimate setting alongside peers who may have very different expectations about how such activities should be practiced. Of the many different traditional cultures that might have clashed, in this case Clementi and Ravi both traded intolerance over social media, with Ravi texting a friend "FUCK MY LIFE / He's gay," and Clementi describing Ravi as "My roomates name is Dharun / I got an azn!" Clearly, there were many differences between the two roommates, including Ravi's erroneous fear that Clementi was "poor," and Clementi's presumption that Ravi, who had grown up in the U.S., was "fresh off the boat."
Such ignorance and intolerance continues to occur at universities, despite the seemingly constant tolerance intervention requiring students to attend workshop after workshop, walking the "identity walk" a thousand miles around campus meeting rooms, and a barrage of documentaries, theater productions, and art installations. Despite, and sometimes in reaction to, all this tolerance training, traditions that inform intolerance remain deeply entrenched. It is not enough here to say, with 18th-century Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant, that college students may arrive intolerant creatures bearing the weight of tradition and can be transformed from such a "race of devils" into "good citizens." This transformation can only occur if the private sphere is included in these public university discussions.
Clementi's death has shaken universities out of their liberal complacency and shown them that more needs to happen before freshmen are thrown together into the mosh-pit of dorm life. In order for university tolerance training to succeed, traditional views and anxieties need to be heard, as well. Had either Clementi or Ravi had a chance to air his anxieties to a university official or in a group setting, the two 18-year-olds' concerns might have been addressed and supported at the beginning of the school year. Often students remain unaware of their capacities for tolerance as well as intolerance until it is too late. Three weeks into freshman year proved disastrously belated for Tyler Clementi.
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A great deal of what Clementi wrote about it (that has been released) suggests that it may have had nothing to do with his death. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the only "relationships" he was having were with anonymous men found on the internet. Men who didn't know his last name and only found out he was dead by reading it in the newspaper. Or maybe it was something completely different again.
Anyone who writes as if they knew is just speculating. It might be noted that neither Clementi's suicide note nor three word documents he wrote the day of his suicide (one of which was entitled whyiseverythingsofullof pain.docx) were released by the police and I think we can be 100% sure that if they touched on his state of mind re:Ravi (since it was precisely Clementi's state of mind that the jurors had to imagine when convicting him) in any way that suggested that Ravi had something to do with his suicide, we would have seen said notes in the trial.
NO, he did not!
While my piece is clearly critical of Ravi's actions, it in no way condones his potential sentence or deportation.
For those who send me anonymous emails accusing me of advocating such a sentence, please consider that Ravi can be seen as a bully and still not be be sentenced so harshly or deported.
For those who call me up and ranting, demanding the retraction of this piece and threatening to call my supervisors because I allegedly attack the memory of Tyler Clementi, please read the facts of the case more carefully: These are two 18 year olds trading with they saw as private messages with minor quotidian intolerances--universities abound with such conversations. My question is how to intervene. Some of the work needs to address how people treat each other in social media.
Unfortunately, my kind editors at Huffington Post's blog team cut much of my analysis which is the focus of this piece--what universities can do, which is find a way to address students' anxieties and conflicting traditions, while also helping them develop a more tolerant voice in social media.
Aren't you just splitting hairs at this point? It seems to me that you've provided a pretty good definition of a bully!
1. Please post the complete piece on a blog or just add a link to a Google Docs page with the content. What you are doing is critical; much more important than the drama in the court.
2. I am glad you asked people to read the facts about the case. After the tragic death of Tyler, the biggest travesity in this case is the media misinformation campaign which convicted Ravi in the court of public opinion; he was presumed guilty.
3. What makes it even worst is that even after the facts have come out, there is no one in the LBGT community who is willing to stand up and admit so. It seems it is considered blasphemous in the LBGT community to say anything positive about Ravi. In the Ian Parker piece, Ravi's gay peer, Tyler Picone, clearly stated so.
4. I do want to point out that most of the electronic trail used to convict Ravi of hate were private communications. Logically it should follow that a person of Indian descent could possibly expect bias intimidation charges filed if his the victim of a crime, and if any evidence of off-color remarks about Indians is found in the thoughts of the defendant. Given the "dot-busting" history of New Jersey, I wonder how many in the jury would have convicted Ravi if they understood the implications of the verdict they delivered.
One big issue not addressed above is "sexiling", and the etiquette associated with it.
Should a you introduce your guest to your room-mate and make him/her comfortable before expecting exclusive access to their shared space?
Dharun was not comfortable with Tyler's 30 year old pederast partner identified as MB. Within the dorm, the initial reaction to the news of Tyler missing, was that MB may be involved; with Dharun's friends wondering if he had a picture.
Another aspect is the frequency of "sexiling". Is three evenings within a span of seven days too much, especially between room-mates who hardly communicated?
While it is easy to argue that Dharun could say no, it is rarely done. Perhaps the failed attempt at the second viewing was a passive-aggressive reaction.
I also wonder about the ethics of their peers since no one questioned Dharun's antics. Tyler also noted that Dharun's Facebook friends were more concerned about him, and no one questioned the invasion of his privacy. It seems reality TV & social media has significantly altered that generation's attitudes towards privacy.
Incidentally the same peers did not find Dharun's actions homophobic or intended with malice towards Tyler; while the jury convicted Dharun on all counts.
Tyler also made a comment about Ravi's parents "defn own a dunkinDonuts"! Was that also in celebration of his AZN roommate? Go read that Ian Parker article fully!
"Ravi is guilty of a hate crime" Again, very strong words. Please show some compassion for a kid, albeit a geeky one incapable of overt expression of emotions, whose only mistake was some juvenile indecency in peeking at his roommate while he was kissing someone else, and his obsession with making his life public in social media. That would be an apt description of a vast number of freshmen geeks, none of whom should have to be expelt, spend 2 years being e-mob-lynched, face a potential 10-year prison term and be exiled to an alien nation.
We can discuss the psychological and social ramifications at length post May. Right now we need everyone's support to make it clear we do not think this kid should be thrown into a cell with common criminals.
This case is pretty much borderline bullying. Why? because bullying are typically confrontational with taunts and threats (you know, the typical schoolyard bully where the bigger kid beats up the little kid that doesn't give him the lunch money). In Cyberspace, it's obviously less different but the same confrontational and taunting theme applies.
Nothing much in this case really showed Ravi being confrontational nor taunting Clementi directly. All he really did was gossip about him and snooped on him or M.B. Hardly anything to be intimidated about. If Tyler was really afraid, he would've just called the cops. All he did was request a room change. Nothing there suggest Ravi being the boogeyman that others paint him to be.