As time passes on the Rutgers bullying case, there is growing concern that justice was not served.
The best summary of the facts leading up to Clementi's suicide is from Ian Parker in the New Yorker. The article was so good that I read it twice. Parker explains that much of the discussion about the case is untrue. Clementi's mom wasn't cool about his homosexuality and may have caused him more hurt than his roommate. He may have been contemplating suicide before he went to Rutgers. Ravi never saw him having sex, just making out, with another guy. The video of the two guys kissing was never put on the Internet. Clementi was no angel; he made rude comments about Indians. There was no evidence that Clementi was extremely hurt by his roommates actions. Parker questions whether criminal charges were overstated in order to punish a moral crime.
There is lots of grey in this story that never made it to the popular media.
From danah boyd,
As someone who wants to rid the world of homophobia, this conviction leaves me devastated. I recognize the symbolic move that this is supposed to make. This is supposed to signal that homophobia will not be tolerated. But Ravi wasn’t convicted of being homophobic, but, rather, creating the “circumstances” in which Clementi would probably feel intimidated. In other words, Ravi is being punished for living in a culture of homophobia even though there’s little evidence to suggest that he perpetuated it intentionally. As Mary Gray has argued, we are all to blame for the culture of homophobia that has resulted in this tragedy.
I can’t help but think of Clementi’s parents in light of this. By all accounts, their reaction to their son’s confession that he was gay did more to intimidate Clementi based on his sexuality than Ravi’s stupid act. Yet, I can’t even begin to imagine that the court would charge, let alone convict, Clementi’s distraught parents of a hate crime. ::shudder::
I can’t justify Ravi’s decision to invade his roommate’s privacy, especially not at a moment in which he would be extremely vulnerable. I also cannot justify Ravi’s decision to mess with evidence, even though I suspect he did so out of fear. But I also don’t think that either of these actions deserve 10 years of jail time or deportation (two of the options given to the judge). I don’t think that’s justice.
This case is being hailed for its symbolism, but what is the message that it conveys? It says that a brown kid who never intended to hurt anyone because of their sexuality will do jail time, while politicians and pundits who espouse hatred on TV and radio and in stump speeches continue to be celebrated. It says that a teen who invades the privacy of his peer will be condemned, even while companies and media moguls continue to profit off of more invasive invasions.
(Thanks to Laura GM for the link.)
Richard Kim from the Nation writes,
There are all too many cases of gay teenagers whose lives have been made intolerably miserable and who are driven to suicide by the harassment and violence of parents, family, fellow students, teachers and other authority figures. This is not transparently one of them. And the trial and verdict to one side, there is another kind of injustice done when a life is crudely forced into becoming a symbol of social wrongs, when it is made to carry the burden of a composite reality—anti-gay hate crimes—to which it bears but a schematic and hasty relation.
We'll never know exactly why Clementi committed suicide. He seems like a very sweet boy, and his parents, who live only a mile away from me, must be consumed with horrible grief. I do think that wrongs were done to this boy, but maybe the worst wrongs didn't come from his roommate. It came from an overall culture that hates gay people; his own family was not immune to that. It also came from a college campus that throws young people into adulthood without the guidance that they need.
When I was starting off as a reporter for my college newspaper, my first assignment was to write up the police blotter section. It was a lot of fun. I would go down to the campus security building, go over the arrest records, and ask questions of the security chief. I could write about anything - people getting busted for drug dealing, public intoxication, fraternity pranks - except I wasn't allowed to write about the suicides. It happened often enough at our school. We were in the suicide zone of colleges in upstate New York, where there isn't enough sun light.
I think we turned a very complicated story into a neat and tidy story with a good guy and a bad guy.