Tyler Clementi committed suicide last year by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson valley. While it has never been definitively established that Clementi’s suicide attempt was directly tied to an ugly incident where one of his roomates, Dharun Ravi, broadcast a sexual encounter between Clementi and another student, it’s seems to have been the straw that broke Clementi’s back.
Ravi has been tried and convicted on multiple counts of bullying and hate crimes, and is scheduled to be sentenced today. He faces up to 10 years in prison and therein lies an interesting tale: many gay advocates and advocacy groups do not want him to be jailed.
As a result, some gay advocates are calling on the court to give Ravi probation instead of prison time.
Among them is Aaron Hicklin, editor of Out magazine, who said in an article that Ravi was being made a scapegoat for Clementi’s suicide.
Another, E.J. Graff, who writes about gay and lesbian issues, said in her column in The American Prospect, “I fear that Ravi is an easy scapegoat for a complicated problem.”
Jim McGreevey, the gay former governor of New Jersey, and Dan Savage, a gay columnist, are others who say that Ravi’s behavior, while wrong, is being dealt with too harshly.
At least one gay advocacy group, Garden State Equality, is pressing for prison time for Ravi, although less than the maximum 10 years.
“Justice is best served by his serving some jail time for the crime committed,” Garden State CEO Steven Goldstein said. “The moderate position is not to throw the book at this young man, nor should he get off Scott free.”
I fall onto the side of moderation here. I do not think that ten years in prison is justified…he doesn’t seem to have had malicious intent in trying to hurt Clementi…on the other hand, he invaded an innocent person’s privacy. We all worry about the government doing this, but governments are at least nominally responsible to the voters. A private citizen is not so to let him off with just a warning seems out of balance.
It would send the wrong message to let Ravi off without some strict punishment, and certainly this should include deportation (he is here on a student visa). But I think a year in prison would set an example that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated.
Is our justice system a method of reform or retribution in this case? If reform, is it served by jail time and how?
The first is whether or not Ravi was motivated to record/broadcast Clementi’s encounter specifically because it was homosexual.
If so, his behavior might be considered a hate crime and he should be sentenced accordingly. If not, his crime might be considered less serious.
The second problem is with society at large, which condemns homosexuality. If that were not the case, Clementi’s activity would not have been an occasion worth publicizing via the clandestine recording. If society reacted with a yawn and a shrug, Ravi would just be viewed as a pornographer.
As far as punishment vs reform is concerned, it’s pretty obvious that our prison system is not structured favor/produce reform. The USA has the highest per capita prison population of any country and it hasn’t made the country any safer, more law-abiding or ‘reformed’.
Besides, in this case, it’s the public attitude that needs to be reformed.
It is worth remembering that the Founding Fathers were all traitors.
As per the Trib, Ravi was “convicted of hate crimes for targeting Clementi and invading his privacy because he was gay.”
Problem solved?
boy that will show them!
NDTV
is obviously (and unfortunately) a bit too knotty to untangle so handily.
As for sentencing, one doesn’t want to undermine the legitimacy of hate crimes legislation (unless one does want to do so). However, I think using Ravi as a convenient scapegoat for broader, structural issues of inequality based on sexual orientation (and the ugly expressions of ignorant privilege that can result) is highly dubious. It’s only going to silence what should be an ongoing — and uncomfortable — conversation (“Hey, man — we totally threw the book at that homophobe kid. What more do you want from us?”).
That’s not gonna shut anyone up.
Right. Less “the book” thrown and more a pamphlet, or a text message.
That’ll leave a mark.
The judge says he added a notation to his judgement recommending that Ravi not be deported.
This is just nauseating.
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
How about a serious community service program working with the seriously underprivileged for a good long time…at least some good will come of it rather than sending him to the Gulag which will only make more profits for the prison industrial complex and probably turn him more sociopathic than he already is.
To other would-be stalkers that we take this kind of underhanded behavior seriously
Sadly, not the case, based on the actual sentence.
After all, there’s porn all over the internet, heterosexual as well as homosexual. Had society accepted homosexuality pari passu with heterosexuality, there would still be idiots setting up webcams to spy on roommates.
The fundamental problem is our attitude towards sexuality, full stop
Actually, that works for me.
TruthDig, By Chris Hedges, May 28
The sentencing of Dharun Ravi for the hateful abuse that may have driven his gay roommate at Rutgers, Tyler Clementi, to commit suicide, or Barack Obama’s public acceptance of gay marriage, prevents many of us from seeing that life for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people is getting worse—much worse.
No one understands this better than the gay activist and pastor Mel White. White, along with his husband and partner of 30 years, Gary Nixon, founded Soulforce, an organization committed to using nonviolent resistance to end religion-based oppression. White and hundreds of Soulforce volunteers protest outside megachurches that preach hatred and bigotry in the name of religion. White travels to communities where young gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people have committed suicide. He holds memorial services for them in front of the church doors. He accuses the pastors of these churches of murder. His books “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America†and “Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tell Us to Deny Gay Equality,†are two of the most important works that examine the innate cruelty and proto-fascism of the Christian right. White, more than perhaps any other preacher in the country, has pulled young men and women back from the brink of despair, from succumbing to the tragic fate of Tyler Clementi. And White is scared.
“What kind of environment creates a Dharun Ravi who would carry out that kind of bullying, as well as a kid like Tyler who would become a victim of that kind of bullying?†White asked when I reached him by phone at his home in Long Beach, Calif. “It is society. At its heart it is the church. The churches should be convicted, not just Ravi. He’s just an extension of the hatred that people feel about this threat, this gay threat. Pope Benedict XVI should be on trial. Richard Land from the Southern Baptists should be on trial. Religious leaders, Protestant and Catholic, should be on trial. They made this happen, but too few Americans make the connection.â€
White applauds President Obama for taking a personal stand for marriage equality. But he also notes that the president’s statement was accompanied by a reiteration that states have the right to determine their own policies toward marriage.
Despite gains by gays in the wider culture, especially in the entertainment industry, and despite the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,†the civil rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in most states are deteriorating, White said.