New Faces, Same Discrimination

By Genevieve Buthod

If you’ve been following the news lately, you may have noticed that the Rutgers student Dharun Ravi was finally tried. He was convicted on each of the fifteen charges for spying on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, through a webcam in their room.

Clementi had met someone and brought him back to the room to hang out. His roommate, Ravi, noticed their online conversations and was interested enough to set up a webcam in the room to see what would happen next. A few days later, Clementi brought his guy back to his room and they had intercourse, all of which was caught on camera by his roommate. Ravi had been updating Twitter twice a day, every day, since Clementi first brought a guy back to the room, and that day, he texted all of his friends and encouraged everyone to watch the video. He spread it around the internet and Tweeted about it extensively, so that Rutgers students had a literally crystal clear image of exactly what Clementi was doing in his private life.

Exactly three days later, Clementi jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge. He was 19 when he died, just three weeks into his freshman year at college.

Ravi has faced no legal consequences for the past one and a half years for the psychological trauma he caused Clementi. The electronic records and phone records show an overwhelming amount of evidence that he thought Clementi’s relationship with another man was disgusting and noteworthy enough to show videos of it to everyone he knew on campus.

At the age of nineteen, Clementi was a legal adult, but he was still a teenager. He was clearly affected by this particularly invasive form of bullying, to the point where he chose to take his own life rather than continue to face the people at his school.

According to the New York Times article, “Jury Finds Spying in Rutgers Dorm Was a Hate Crime,” Ravi’s lawyers said that he did not think he had committed a hate crime. They argued, “…he was ‘a kid’ with little experience of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him.” I honestly don’t buy this excuse. He may not have had “much experience with homosexuality”—doubtful in itself—but he had a lifetime of experience interacting with other human beings.

He should know how to treat other people by now. He showed that he cared so little for Clementi that he took the liberty of broadcasting his most personal and intimate moments to everyone he knew and mocking him for it all the while, multiple times daily according to internet and phone records.

I find it shocking that we live in a time when someone with any kind of non-hetero sexual orientation can be so de-humanized and objectified, and people do not seem to have an issue with it. It was a joke to the kids who tormented him. Any kind of bullying is wrong, but singling someone out for their sexuality is particularly disgusting.

But the important thing to remember is that these actions are not isolated incidents. These kids wouldn’t have been able to act freely and cruelly without the support of a culture that routinely targets the LGBTQ community as less than normal; less than equal. Gay bashing and teen bullying rests comfortably in its age-appropriate niche, following the example of older Americans who firmly believe that gays do not deserve the same civil rights as heterosexuals and that same-sex parents will raise children with “disordered sexual desires.”

Sometimes, it is the responsibility of the young to grant wisdom to our elders. We need to show our nation’s leaders, both in the Church and in the political arena, that we no longer accept living in a country where people discriminate against others for something as private and neutral as their sexuality. We can do this by writing to our legislators to encourage them to fight for gay marriage legislation and anti-bullying laws. We can speak up in our parish youth groups (I realize this is difficult, but I have done it, so it’s possible!) about making more of an effort to include LGBTQ youth in our church communities. We can learn more through amazing Chicago organizations like the Center on Halsted, a resource for gay teens. Follow this link to learn more: http://www.centeronhalsted.org/

Good luck learning more about these issues, and please comment below or e-mail me at buthod.g01@mymail.sxu.edu if you want to continue the dialogue.
The photo below shows Clementi on the left; Ravi on the right.

Genevieve Buthod is a sophomore, and a major in Computer Science with a minor in Philosophy. She is a happy and healthy vegan. She is also the TIAA-CREF Campaign Manager for Students for Justice in Palestine. Genevieve is the Senior Viewpoints Editor for the Xavierite.