civil rights Essay

Submitted By elenarestrepo
Words: 449
Pages: 2

In the fall of 2010, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, James Clementi went to drop off his younger brother, Tyler at Rutgers University. Little did James know, this would be the last time he would see Tyler. That past summer, James, 25, came out to his younger brother Tyler, 18. James suspected Tyler was also gay, but never confronted him about it. Surprisingly, Tyler also told his brother he had been gay. Unknowingly, James never thought Tyler would have such a horrible experience his freshman year of college. Several weeks into the semester, Tyler committed suicide. His roommate, Dharun Ravi and another suitemate, Molly Wei, used a webcam to secretly watch Tyler interact with another male student. Ravi later that day, gossiped on Twitter saying, “I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.” That afternoon Tyler panicked at the emails and the hatred he was getting on social media by former students. Tyler called his older brother, James with horror and humiliation for what was happening to him at his own school. Hours went by without any communication from James. Tyler decided to give up and made an irrational decision that would soon affect many people. That night, on September 22, 2010, Tyler briefly posted on Facebook saying “Jumping off the George Washington Bridge sorry”. The comment gave no hint of the torment that lay behind Tyler’s act to take his own life. Details began to emerge that following morning when a young man’s body was dragged out of the Hudson River at the northern end of Manhattan. Ravi and his friend Molly Wei were charged and have been accused of invading young Clementi’s privacy. This tragic event changed James