Gay Rights Voices Urge Leniency in Rutgers Spying Case

I strongly disagree with the urges for leniency. Ravi channeled his hatred for all gay and bisexual men through Clementi. He needs to be made an example of.

 

I'm seconding this. Clementi is dead solely because of Ravi and the campaign he orchestrated against Tyler. He's never coming back. Ravi demonstrated malicious intent, it was obviously pre-meditated, and it occurred over an extended period of time. He should get no leniency. He knew exactly what he was doing.

 

While I disagree with the leniency suggestion, they make an argument for a discussion on finding why Ravi thought this way, and the ways in which our society feeds into homophobia.

 

I really don't know what to think about this. I third the motions made by Pret and Kidd but I do see where Paper is coming from...I just don't think he should be freed as they put it. He deserves the time in jail for what he did. The most I'd be lenient about is how long he is in jail.

 

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the call to leniency on his case. I know, ridcs of me, but hear me out.

I personally think that he honestly doesn't have a conscious hatred towards homosexuals and he didn't go out of his way to bully someone just because of his sexuality. Yes, what he did was wrong, but it wasn't done out of hatred from what I have read and heard from his interviews.

The kid saw someone have sex online, he was shocked by it and wanted to have fun with it, so he went ahead and did his thing. Yes, its a tragedy that it resulted in a death, but I honestly think that didn't intend for that to happen. Why do I say that? because as a country we are obsessed with getting nude material from celebrities and we like when people get some. I can be most of you have seen at least one nude celeb picture. If you have, then you were doing exactly the same thing that Dharun was doing.

What I find sickening is that we are comparing this case as a hate crime. That means that we are comparing to people who go out of their way to beat up, kill and harass gay people JUST because they are gay. People who wait outside of gay clubs just to kill people or to people who beat someone up after they see them hugging or kissing someone from he same-sex.. To me, this is not one of those cases. To make this kid an example out of something is just cruel

Edit: From the article, this quote sums it up for me

 

From what I remember about the case I don't think that kid deserves to be free without punishment but I also don't think he should serve a significant amount of time, like multiple years. I don't see how anyone could have anticipated that leaking an embarrasing video would lead to suicide. I don't know, but I have known of some pretty ridiculous pranks (sometimes malicious in nature) that seem worse than this. But w/e maybe I'd feel differently if it happened to me.

 

I can understand your position, but do you really think Ravi would have done that if Clementi were straight? If he knew Clementi were having sex with a women, I think he would have given the man his space. The spying was done on the basis of animus and disapproval.

I don't believe in the sincerity of anything he's said after the trial. What he is engaged in is a post-conviction attempt to feign remorse and the absence of mal-intent.

I don't think it's at all invalid to call it a hate crime. It's only a difference of degree. Just because he didn't go to a gay bar and machine-gun everyone down doesn't mean that he feels all that much better about gay and bisexual men than one who actually would light up the bar. He publicly humiliated Clementi knowing full well what he was doing as well as the stigma associated with homosexuality. He knew that the fact it was a gay intimate encounter would make it more emotionally injurious. It was all calculated quite coldly.

 

Maybe and maybe not. When people found nude pictures of Dustin Lance Black or sex videos of Kim Kardashian, what did they do with them? Why don't we charge those people with hate crimes? Would we charge people for murder if the celebrities kill themselves because of the embarrassment?

Yes, he might have done it because "holy shit, gay people having sex LOL SO FUNNY and gross", but I don't think he said "oh, the guy is gay. I'm going to humiliate the fucking bastard so bad for being a fag. Hope he dies after peopel see this. Serves him right for being gay". I don't think he did that at all.

Again, maybe, but he is going a LONG way to try to act like he is being a nice guy now. The guy didn't take any of the deals that people gave him because he said he will not admit that he hates gay, because he doesn't, and the deals required him to say that he had done what he did because of his hatred towards gays. Something that he has always denied.

I will disagree with you just because there is a difference between homophobia and making bad pranks. Dharun roomed with this guy without any trouble at all for a while. It didn't make him uncomfortable, it didn't disturb him and he didn't interfere with his life at all until the webcam came in. How I see it, it was a guy dealing with a situation in the wrong way and getting an unfair punishment for it. Yes, what he did was wrong and it should be punished, but blaming him for his death is a ridcs thing to do. He didn't kill the kid because of it, he wasn't the last straw and there is no real evidence that directly ties the webcam and him committing suicide.

 

if i were Clemeti's parent i would be totally devastated if Ravi got off because my own son decision to suicide was purely his fault or what ever they are trying to say, regardless if it were because he was gay or what ever this ravi douch'e bags case is.

 

Ravi gets 30 days in jail for bullying gay roommate

So there you go folks. 30 days, three years probation, community service, and $11,000 in restitution. Our justice system at work...

 

^ anything harsher would have been an atrocity on itself. I'm glad he didn't get more than 30 days and I'm even happier that he won't be getting deported because of it.

Now I just hope that this kid has the courage to step up and do something positive with everything that went on. He has the potential right now to open a lot of people's eyes towards what society as a whole has been doing to LGBT youth for years now.

 

His probation is going to be a total joke. Now he has to check in once or twice a month with a probation officer. Big deal. Some punishment that is. And 300 hours of community service? That's what? Three months of work? The $10,000 dollar fine is a nice touch, but I would have thought that someone with potential and a real shot at a great future like Clementi would be worth more than that. I think this was a total slap on the wrist.

 

^ This.

 

I'd love to say this entire case was a simple prank gone horribly wrong with poor timing, but I know virtually no specifics of the case. I'll take the jury's word for it that it was a hate crime.

 

While I didn't think that his punishment should be extremely severe, I don't believe that 30 days is by any means enough of a punishment. He should have received at the very minimum a few months in jail for what he did, not just 30 days. While the other stipulations of his punishment make it somewhat more reasonable, I still believe that thirty days in prison is just a slap on the wrist for what he did, which is wrong.

From what I've seen, and I could be wrong, but he did not seem very remorseful about what happened. He seemed only concerned about what would happen to him and not about what had already happened to Tyler. This would lead me to highly doubt that he will use any potential he has to open people's eyes towards the bullying of others. Now that he has his own punishment (one that is not too severe I might add), I don't see him caring much about the well being of other victims of bullying.

 

^ This.

I also agree that his punishment is a slap on the wrist. To me he seems too arrogant to sympathise with the gay cause. Thus he needs to be made an example of. Okay, sentencing him might not fix the problem at heart (that requires a shift in education and cultural values, which can take years to solve). But at least a precedent can be set that will (hopefully) act as a suitable deterrent, enough to warn others that any actions that could be construed as promoting hate or intolerance, any actions that infringe upon the safety of others' wellbeing, will be dealt with and dealt with seriously.

 

I do agree with this, but we already have plenty of cases that have done that for us. Cases who are illegitimately hate crimes and not some kid being a moron. Cases like Mathew Shepard and Lawrence king are already there. There is no reason to make this one guy an example for everyone else.

I know I might be getting annoying with this topic so I'll stop after this, but here is the thing that really bothers me about the whole thing. He doesn't hate gay people and doesn't have a problem with them, yet we want to label it homphobia just because the incident involved a gay student. Not only that, but calling this a hate crime is insulting towards other cases where people have been killed and attacked by people who truly have hate within their hearts.

 

Do I think Dharun Ravi is a homophobe? No. I think he's an arrogant and insensitive jerk with a sense of entitlement who lacks remorse for his actions. If he had shown a great deal of remorse for Tyler's death, then I could have accepted it as just a stupid prank gone horribly wrong. The extent of the punishment for him would have been community service. I don't feel he is remorseful at all; in fact, I believe he sees himself as the victim.

As a result, I believe his sentence is an insult. It's a slap on the wrist.

Let's not forget that this guy was offered a plea deal. He would have gotten no jail time, be required to perform 600 hours of community service, undergo counseling, and dispose of any information that could identify M.B. (the guy who was with Tyler). The prosecutors also offered to help him avoid deportation. He refused all of that, and in the end, got a punishment that was only marginally worse.

If I were the judge, I would have given him 3 months in prison, 5 years probation, 1,500 hours of community service, and required him to pay a $50,000 fine. The time actually spent serving out his sentence would be roughly a year, assuming that he works his community service off as a 40 hour work week (which would equal 37 and a half weeks of service plus 12 weeks of prison time).

Finally, I would require his community service to be served out in some capacity serving LGBT at risk youth for suicide. This means working for something like the Trever Project. Hopefully, through his work there, he'd grow to become more humble and remorseful for his actions. He would finally be forced to see the world through a different set of eyes, and maybe - just maybe - change him for the better, allowing him to step out of this as a changed and improved person. To me, I would have called that justice.

Instead, I think he's going to walk away an entitled brat who is going to find a way to cash in on his experience, portraying himself as a victim or martyr - abused by the horrible gays and their agenda. I'd be shocked if a book deal wasn't already on its way.

 

That's the exact impression that I got of him as well. You describe the exact way I feel towards this situation. If he was truly sorry for what he did and what happened to Tyler, then I would be all for leniency. However, that didn't seem to be the case. From what I saw, like I mentioned earlier, he didn't seem remorseful for Tyler at all but rather was only sorry that he was going to have to face a punishment. A person that doesn't care that they caused/helped cause another person to kill themselves deserves no leniency in my opinion. Now Tyler's family is not only going to have to live knowing that Dharun doesn't care about what happened to Tyler but also with the fact that he only has to endure a mere 30 days in jail for his actions. I personally do not see how they are receiving any justice from this. Dharun is neither facing morale punishment from himself for his actions nor any substantial punishment from the government...it's wrong.