<p>I am, for one, not at all inclined to indict the parents here for not providing support. We don’t know whether they knew he was gay or not, and we don’t know what the tenor of their relationship with their son was during the period before the suicide. And I might add, we don’t need to. </p>
<p>These folks are devastated. Not because their son was gay. But because their son is dead by his own hand. Please please don’t judge them. Whatever their possible mistakes in parenting they certainly deserve our sympathy now. </p>
<p>I also wouldn’t rush to judge the parents of the brutes. We don’t know anything about them either. Nor do we really need to. </p>
<p>Whenever tragedy happens, I think we are all inclined to look for a place to put the blame. Because it makes us feel better about ourselves- “oh no, we say, we would never do such a thing, we would raise our children better, we would support them more”. </p>
<p>The reality is that sometimes our best efforts just aren’t good enough and each person is responsible for their own actions, not the actions of others.The degree to which these brutes are culpable in Tyler’s suicide remains to be proven. The depth of the depravity of their actions, however, is self-evident. At a bare minimum, they knew they were hurting him and they wanted to do so. That is cruelty, that is brutish. And for that, they will ultimately answer to God, in my faith world. </p>
<p>Pardon my passion- as a survivor of a family member’s suicide I feel very strongly about the issue.</p>
<p>Does this mean: an unsung hero alerted the police about the presence of the camera? That’s good.</p>
<p>And does this mean: ALL students who participated merely by VIEWING the first video committed a fourth-degree crime?</p>
<p>Do our (your and my) college students realize they may have an opportunity (or obligation) to actively stop such actions if they are invited to view? Or to turn away their gaze lest they commit a “fourth-degree crime” themselves? I don’t know what it means to be complicit in such a collective crime but it’s worth considering.</p>
<p>According to news stories, someone who is believed (but not proved) to be Tyler Clementi posted a series of messages on a gay community message board about his situation. Toward the end of this string of posts, Tyler said that he had contacted an RA. It seems likely that the RA would have contacted his/her superiors and that the information got to the campus police that way.</p>
<p>Whether Tyler was out or not will matter because it goes to his ‘state of mind’ at the time of the suicide. It will be a huge piece of the puzzle in trying to determine whether he had problems at home and was suicidal with the video being the final straw. Or whether he was a well adjusted individual who panicked and did something crazy in a moment of despair. </p>
<p>I’m not ready to pass judgment on his parents. The questions are more for putting together pieces of the puzzle. We need to hear more about what they knew about him and when. If they did not know and he felt he could not tell them, the question of ‘why’ would play a huge part in understanding the internalizing of his anger and severe self destructive reaction to the situation when others would have lashed out at the perp instead.</p>
<p>It is sad to think that when a tragedy like this happens to someone and his family, all of a sudden people feel their private life becomes free for all. Tyler and his family are victims here.</p>
<p>I am a fairly together person, with a strong will. But if my private life was broadcasted for all my colleagues at work to see, I don’t know what I would do.</p>
<p>I’m not defending the two perps but if I were then the (potential) news that Tyler was depressed about his sexuality because his parents were not going to be accepting of him would be huge news that I’d want out in the court of public opinion. His relationships with those close to him likely will turn up in an actual court some day.</p>
<p>We may find it intrusive or nobody’s business but the two perps will find that information relevant to their defense and the prosecution relative to the case they build.</p>
<p>Oldfort-- As a together adult, you would be upset, but you would also immediately contact the authorities and probably begin to interview attorneys for your civil suit. If it was a colleague who’d done this, you would contact HR.</p>
<p>Whatever else was going on in this young man’s life, he was not yet prepared to deal with one more thing. Whether or not the ultimate “reason” he jumped from the bridge can be directly traced to the bullying by Wei and Ravi is immaterial. They committed a criminal invasion of privacy, and we absolutely “need” a body of settled law to deal with this new technology. They will pay the price because it is a publicized case and because it is not the first publicized case and because our legal system is still wrestling with culpability in terms of electronic media.</p>
<p>As I said on a different thread on this subject, in the past, people like Ravi and Wei would still have tortured the roommate, only it would have been hidden. They would have been cruel, because the social media only magnify and present us with the type of cruelty that’s been going on in the background forever. Now, when a parent says, “They’re bullying my kid,” it is not necessarily true that the adults can’t find evidence and do not know. The bullies leave a trace and can be prosecuted. I’m glad for this, even if I am so sorry for this young man and his family.</p>
<p>I think there’s another possibility as well.</p>
<p>Tyler isn’t the only one who had his privacy violated. His date’s privacy was violated, too.</p>
<p>I suspect that his date may have some reason to want to keep his private life private. You’ll notice that so far, he has not gone public. Some people in this situation would have gone to the media by now or filed a huge lawsuit against Ravi and Wei. This man has not done so. And he met Tyler twice in a very awkward location – a double dorm room on a college campus – not on his own territory. I think that if he had access to a private place of his own and did not need to conceal the fact that he was dating Tyler, the two of them would have gone to his place rather than that dorm.</p>
<p>It is not unreasonable to think that Tyler’s date may have been harmed – or exposed to potential harm – by the violation of his privacy. </p>
<p>I have been wondering about Tyler’s last actions before he jumped off the bridge. We know that he left identifiable personal items nearby – his car, his laptop, his cell phone, his wallet – and that he posted on Facebook that he was going to jump off the bridge. So obviously he wanted his fate known. If he had not wanted that, he could have left his personal items in the dorm, taken mass transit to the bridge, and stayed off of Facebook. But the very last thing Tyler did before he walked onto that bridge was not an announcement; it was an apology. The final word of his Facebook message is “sorry.” I wonder whether he was apologizing to his date for inadvertently getting him into a bad situation.</p>
<p>"Both suspects come from relatively well-off families in New Jersey suburbs. One of Ravi’s parents is a computer consultant in Plainsboro, and Wei’s father is a chemical engineer in Princeton. Neither family has responded to media phone calls or knocks on their doors.</p>
<p>Steve Greenstein, who lives next door to the Ravi family, described them as “fine people, a nice family.” He told the news website NJ.com that the 18-year-old suspect was “a good, quiet kid” who did long jump for the local high school track team. Other high school classmates said the same. "</p>
<p>I usually try to stay away from these threads but this one just saddens me. I think that perhaps Tyler had many issues that ultimately led him to do what he did. His suicide is infintely sad and my heart goes out to his family. I’m perhaps more disturbed by the actions of the two involved. It saddens me to think that in this age with so much emphasis placed on community service, and helping less fortunate, sensitivity training and awareness that there are kids that seem to have a displaced moral compass. Perhaps all of our well placed intentions as adults in preventing kids from having sandbox squables we have missed that the kids aren’t experiencing the consequences of their actions. Bullies and victims are as old as time. Sounds radical but if perhaps if the young man was a bully of sorts and had been punched in the nose at some point in his life he might not have felt so immune to inflicting bully tactics as a young adult. Perhaps I’m using that as some sort of metaphor. Perhaps like all of us I don’t know the answer to the question “why.” Perhaps stories like this make me deep inside worry that maybe I wasn’t a good enough parent…I’m sure both the young man and young woman have parents who think they had done a good job. What a tremendous waste of young lives, one is gone and two will live with this for a lifetime and all those around them will be affected, the RA who will forever wonder if he/she could have done something, the other young man in the video, the friends of all of them. Really, really sad.</p>
<p>"His parents bought a half-page of space in the back of the West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North yearbook, Excalibur. Sandwiched between their son’s graduation photo and three childhood pictures, they wrote:</p>
<pre><code>Dear Dharun,
It has been a pleasure watching you grow into a caring and responsible person. We are very proud of you. You are a wonderful son and brother. You are a great inspiration to Jay. Keep up your good work. Hold on to your dreams and always strive to achieve your goals. We know that you will succeed.
</code></pre>
<p>Almost as an afterthought, they added another sentence:</p>
<pre><code>Dharun,
We will always be there to love and support you every step of the way.
<p>If his parents were aware of his sexual orientation is not the issue. Even if Tyler had discussed this with his parents and they were accepting of his lifestyle it does not mean that he would have been OK with this being out there for his family to see. Most young people would be devastated if hetero sex was on the web for all to see. This kind of thing could have been the last straw and I believe it was. </p>
<p>How could anyone blame parents or even think that Tylers parents reaction to his sexual identity could have caused this. The blame is to be put where it belongs, on the two sick individuals who masterminded this cruel offence. Tylers parents are not to be considered at all in this situation.</p>
<p>NO ONE is blaming the parents or his family. The relationship with him will be of interest to the authorities as well as counselors who may help them with their grief. </p>
<p>It would be with the suicide of ANY young person not just Tyler.</p>
<p>I have been thinking more about this, and how would any of us feel if we had been essentially put into a porn movie on the web without our knowledge or permission (and made a joke of at the same time)? Maybe a few of us are so confident and good looking that it would be okay, but I think it is about the most humiliating thing imaginable for most people…</p>
<p>Its an interesting question, especially since that is not what happened to Tyler. Its clear that he believed that the first incident could only have shown "making out’ (kissing and hugging?–I know I’m not up to date on terminology). It also seems clear that there was nothing viewable during his second encounter. </p>
<p>The press complaining about the silence of the accused is right off the template of the Duke lacrosse media frenzy. Exactly the same thing happened in that case. Admittedly that one was much less tragic, but you can see the writers are frustrated with their inability to find any additional factual support for the vicious gay bashers label that they want to hang on Ravi and Wei. My guess is that there isn’t anything out there for the press to find. Ravi and Wei are just two dumb a** kids whose lives are going to be changed for a long time because of a lapse in judgement</p>
<p>I would probably would have done all that, I probably could have those offenders fired and won millions of $ through civil suit. But could all that take away my humiliation? Would I ever feel comfortable in going to work to face all of my colleagues day in and day out. Would I ever feel I could be effective at my job again? </p>
<p>When D1 first had a discussion with us about sex, hooking up…how now a days having sex with someone just didn’t have the same connotation as it used to have. H said to her, “You are never as vulnerable as when you stand naked in front of someone. You better make sure you trust that person before you do that.” Not sure how far Tyler went with his partner, but to have one’s most intimate act be fully exposed in front so many people has to be one of the most humiliating thing.</p>
<p>Dadx, what is your source? You seem to have some first hand knowledge of what was in the first video, have you seen it? None of the links from this thread are explicit about what did or didn’t happen in the first video (except the first link in the first post, which indicates that there was sex involved). Please provide a source if you have information indicating that it was something other than that.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters if it was just a kiss and hug or other sexual acts that were taped. The intent was to tape the tryst. And in the second attempt, Tyler thwarted the taping by shutting off the camera, but that easily could have been a live stream of sexual acts. Ravi didn’t invite friends on Twitter to just watch two guys having a conversation.</p>