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Telephone: 877-422-6924
E-mail: njcae@njfpc.org
May 11, 2012 By now the story is over-rehearsed. Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers committed suicide after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, spied on him. On March 16, 2012, Dharun Ravi was declared guilty of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and hate crime. Justice has been served. But has it really? The Indian American community doesn’t think so. And we are less and less convinced. A prosecutor pursues charges based on the severity of the crime. But in this case, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office appears to have been driven by political motivations. Invasion of privacy was a given—that’s what spying is. But bias intimidation and hate crimes typically have to do with violence. Instead of prosecuting Ravi for harassment or even discrimination, the prosecution decided his crime was being “anti-gay.” Bias intimidation and hate crimes carry heavier sentences than harassment and discrimination, and would conveniently serve to make Ravi an example—and saddle him with blame for Clementi’s death.
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