Dharun Ravi has been indicted on 15 different counts stemming from his video outing of his gay Rutgers roomate, Tyler Clementi. As you may recall, Clementi subsequently committed suicide by jumping off the GW bridge over the Hudson River. Many of the counts Ravi has been charged with are related to his attempted cover-up after it Clementi killed himself and the suicide was investigated. The primary charge of “invasion of privacy” is at the heart of the matter in which Ravi secretly web-cammed Clementi having sex with another man in his dorm room, and then streamed it onto the internet.
Many can speculate about Ravi’s motivation for his actions, I’m guessing that only he or his co-conspirator, Molly Wei, also charged, could tell us whether their intent was humorous college hi-jinks or a homophobic hate crime.
One could be hard pressed to say that Ravi is responsible for Clementi’s death, but his actions clearly violated Clementi’s right to privacy. When I was in college, I had my privacy violated in numerous ways, through various forms of practical jokes. Hey, that’s part of the college experience, especially living in dorms. I can say I never once thought about seeking the prosecution of anyone, nor did anyone who caught the brunt of any of my own jokes. This case, I believe, reached such attention, because of the resulting suicide. If there had not been a suicide, I doubt it would have made even local news, much less a prosecutors desk. But Ravi’s not being charged in any way with contributing to Clementi’s death, I believe, he’s being charged because of it.
Why? You never had a roomate attempt to photograph you having sex or have a group from down the hall bust in on you mid-coitus? Where did you go to school, Bob Jones University?
Yeah, and I thought it was a movie, not a documentary. Honestly, one thing that would have made me avoid US universities is precisely this whole dorm thing. I’m a fucking adult, thank you very much, summer camps are behind me.
A practical joke is something that causes momentary inconsequential embarassment, not something that causes permanent harm. There are insufficient laws for this level of invasion of privacy, and the idiot in question here probably has no substantial property to take in a civil action, so he will not suffer great consequences for his actions.
My opinion of a suitable consequence would just be considered inappropriate in this thread.
I never had anything like that happen in my two years in a college dorm. Teasing, pranking, fighting… sure. But attempting to videotape sex and broadcast it to the world? Nope.
So would you feel the same way if Clementi were straight, and was having sex his girlfriend? Because that kind of crap goes on all the time with little consequences. Maybe a disciplinary hearing with the University dean, but doesn’t make national news.
Second that this does not appear in any way shape nor form to be simply a “practical joke” taken too “seriously.” It sure appears that a primary driver for the actions were because Tyler was gay and Dharun Ravi was trying to exploit a gay encounter. Dharun Ravi also appears to have tried to fraudulently covered up his actions.
That said, I do not believe Dharun Ravi was trying to cause his roommate to commit suicide.
As I said in the OP, I believe the only people that can cleary assess the intentions would be Ravi and Wei themselves. It is my understanding they have not released what their intentions were.
But let’s assume that the motivation was to exploit a gay encounter. Why is that fundamentally different or more wrong than exploiting a heterosexual encounter?
First of all, the guy wasnt straight, he was gay, and had problems with that. Apparently that’s exactly what sparked Ravi’s interest. That the guy was gay, and that he had serious problems with his homosexuality. Moreover Ravi had tried several times to tape Clementi in action (Clementi had already complained to the University’s authorities about that, to no avail). Here are all the tell tale signs of someone preying on the weak.
It wasnt funny, he pushed it too far, and he is far from being the one that has to cope with the damages. That’s Clementi’s family’s burden.
There seems to be quite a nasty curiosity for gay sex on Ravi’s part. Maybe some prison time will help him resolve that.
Now, imagine he did the same thing with another guy, straight, with known problems, and the guy commits suicide over that. Do we all have a good laugh and go back to business as usual?
If Ravi could reasonably expect the results to cause him such harm, then yes. It sounds like a reasonable person would understand that Clementi was not publicly out, emotionally immature, and would suffer great emotional harm. I have stated that the laws do not deal well with this, and Ravi may have assumed he was doing nothing illegal, but he clearly did not invade Clementi’s privacy with the intention of causing inconsequential embarassment, or in a sense of common joviality. It was clearly a mean-spirited act. Had he done something to me of a similar nature I would be the one charged with crimes after resolving the matter myself.
I’m not sure which argument you are using as a justification. Is it two wrongs make a right, or stupidity on the part of the perpetrator?
That will be difficult to prove. Is there evidence of Ravi’s past harrassment of homosexuals?
Sounds like your of the opinion that suicide is the reason for the prosecution, and justifiably so. Yet they aren’t charging Ravi for the contributing to the suicide…so why is it relevant?
Right. My idea of a “practical joke” is one that is transient, causes no more than trivial harm, if any, and is something that the “victim” can laugh about later.
Devious acts that, to me, could be considered “practical jokes”, but are on the “serious” end, toward the border of acceptable joking, are giving someone a fake layoff notice, fake bad report card, or things like that.
Nearly harmless practical jokes are things like reprogramming someone’s office computer to display weird visual effects or walling up their office door so that it appears to be a wall.
Again, I think it’s easy to jump to that conclusion, but will be a very difficult thing for the prosecution to prove.
I’m only saying that the prosecution is wanting to make an example of Ravi in this case because of the resulting suicide. Yet, they can’t charge him for contributing to the Clementi’s death. Seems a bit incongruous to me.
If they can show a history of harrassment of homosexuals on Ravi’s part and prove the intent of harrassment because of Clementi being gay, then I think they have a case. Otherwise I see it no different than other college practical jokes. Ravi can’t be held responsible for how Clementi reacted.
I don’t think he’s being charged with manslaughter. He’s being charged with invasion of privacy, and the resulting death is an indication of the seriousness of the crime. It sounds reasonable in such a case to prosecute to the maximum extent of the law, but as in any case, not beyond it.