Dharun Ravi has been released after serving only 20 days of his way-too-light 30-day sentence, after his filming of his gay Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi, resulted in Clementi’s committing suicide.
Ravi will not be deported back to India, which is a shame, since we have enough native-born homophobes in this country and really don’t need any more.
When Tyler Clementi, a gay Rutgers student, discovered that his roommate, Dharun Ravi, had been spying on him with a webcam when he was engaged in romantic activity, he committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.
Today Ravi, who could have gotten up to ten years in prison, was sentenced to a measly 30 days. Clementi and his family deserve more than this token punishment. Ravi should have gotten a much longer sentence, and he should be deported back to India. We have enough awful people in this country we can’t get rid of, there’s no reason to keep the ones we don’t have to. It is a privilege to live here, and Ravi obviously doesn’t appreciate that privilege.
Might Tyler Clementi eventually have killed himself without Ravi’s provocation? No one knows. But he wouldn’t have killed himself when he did. The official cause of death is that Clementi jumped. But I would say Ravi pushed him.
Emily Bazelon has an op-ed in the NYT arguing it’s unfair for Dharun Ravi to face ten years in prison for his conviction on invasion of privacy and a hate crime. In 2010, Mr. Ravi set up a webcam to catch his Rutgers roommate, Tyler Clementi, in sexual situations with men, and then tweeted and texted about it, inviting others to watch. Mr. Clementi committed suicide.
In tort law, there is the Thin Skull Rule, which holds that you “take your victim as you find him.” If you push me down, I might have a skinned knee and need a band-aid. Or I might have hemophilia and bleed to death. Your bad luck, and you face the consequences legally.
I doubt that Mr. Ravi intended to drive Mr. Clementi to his death. But he had no way of knowing how he would react. Another victim might have punched Mr. Ravi or changed roommates (as Mr. Clementi was trying to do) and gone on with his life. Mr. Ravi has to deal with the consequence that Mr. Clementi chose instead to end his life. He has to take Mr. Clementi as he found him.
Ms. Bazelon compares the Ravi case to that of five teenagers who also faced ten years in prison for their role in bullying Phoebe Prince, a fifteen-year-old Massachusetts girl who committed suicide. She writes that the district attorney “wisely resolved the cases” with the teenagers getting “probation and community service.” But as Ms. Bazelon notes, Mr. Ravi was offered community service if he admitted the invasion of privacy. So the difference here is not a harsh prosecution, but a stupid defendant.
Mr. Ravi behaved stupidly in his treatment of Mr. Clementi. Offered mercy, he behaved stupidly again in his rejection of a plea bargain. I can’t feel sorry for him.
Maybe Tyler Clementi would have jumped off the George Washington Bridge someday. But Dharun Ravi shouldn’t have pushed him.
Embattled Farmers 