Prior to the Rutgers University freshman’s suicide in the fall of 2010, relatively few people knew Tyler Clementi before the student jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, but the wake from that sad and desperate act is now felt around the world.
According prosecutors, no one is certain why Tyler Clementi took his life in September of last year but his suicide occurred after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, used a webcam to watch Tyler have a sexual encounter with another man in their dorm room.
It is reported that Tyler’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, set up a webcam and watched with a friend, Molly Wei, in her dormitory room. Clementi appears to have found out about the webcast and had filed a complaint with the resident assistant.
After the webcam matter was discovered by the authorities, both Ravi and Wei were charged with invasion of privacy. Many assert that intolerance is growing at the same rate cyberspace has given us the ability to invade the lives of others. Tyler Clementi’s suicide highlighted the need for more stringent anti-bullying law.
Many advocates assert that New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that is the toughest anti-bullying law in the country. Some argue that, New Jersey’s law is vastly different and much better than anti-bullying laws that exist elsewhere across the country.
New Jersey’s “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights” is intended to eliminate loopholes in the state’s first anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002, that encouraged school districts to set up programs to combat bullying but did not mandate it.
The new law requires training for most public school teachers, administrators and other employees on how to spot bullying and mandate that all districts form a “school safety team” to review complaints. School districts will be graded by the state on their efforts to combat the problem.
Administrators who do not investigate reported incidents of bullying would be disciplined, while students who bully could be suspended or expelled. School employees would also be required to report all incidents they learn of, whether they took place in or outside of school. The effective implementation of this law should serve to provide children and youth with a sense of safety and freedom from being intimidated or harassed.
Photo credit: Microsoft Clip Art
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