Cyberbullying
Twenty-year-old Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi secretly activated the webcam in his dorm room so that he and a friend could watch his roommate, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, engage in a romantic encounter with another male. Ravi used texts and Twitter to encourage friends to watch a second planned video that did not occur. Clementi subse- quently committed suicide. In March 2012, Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, among other crimes, and sentenced to 30 days in jail, 300 hours of com- munity service, and a fine of $10,000 to be paid to hate crime victims.
The Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act, a bill introduced in Con- gress in 2015, would have required colleges and universities receiving federal student aid funding to have and distribute a policy prohibiting harassment. Prohibited harassment in- cluded cyberbullying of enrolled students by other students, faculty, and staff based on, among other things, actual or perceived sexual orientation.
Questions
- Do you think the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act should have been enacted? Explain.
- Cosponsors of the bill, New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg and New Jersey represen- tative Rush D. Holt, pointed to the actions and subsequent firing in 2013 of Mike Rice, head basketball coach at Rutgers University, who was videotaped making slurs regarding sexual orientation to players and engaging in other harassing conduct, as proof of the need for such antibullying legislation. Do you agree? Explain.
AlthoughhewasnotchargedwithcausingClementi’sdeath,Raviwasfacingapossible 10 years in state prison. Do you think Ravi’s actual sentence was fair or too light? Ex- plain
