Question: Cyberbullying

In the fall of 2010, 20-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-yearold 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 subsequently 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 community service, and a fine of $10,000 to be paid to hate crime victims. The Tyler Clementi Higher Education Harassment Act, reintroduced in Congress in February 2013, would require colleges and universities receiving federal student aid funding to have and distribute a policy prohibiting harassment. Prohibited harassment would include cyberbullying of enrolled students by other students, faculty, and staff based on, among other things, actual or perceived, sexual orientation.

Questions

1. Do you think the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Act should be enacted? Explain.

2. Co-sponsors of the bill, New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg and New Jersey representative Rush D. Holt, pointed to the actions and subsequent firing in 2013 of Mike Rice, head basketball coach at Rutgers University, as proof of the need for such antibullying legislation. Rice was videotaped making slurs regarding sexual orientation to players and engaging in other harassing conduct. Do you agree? Explain.

3. Although he was not charged with causing Clementi's death, Ravi was facing a possible 10 years in state prison. Do you think Ravi's actual sentence was fair or too light? Explain.