1. Who is responsible for Tyler's Death? Perhaps more than one person is responsible? You may want to place responsibility based on percentage. Some examples of who may hold responsibility are, Tyler himself, Tyler himself, Tylers Parents, Dharun Ravi, Molly Wei, or even Rutger's University?
I feel that 90% responsibility falls to Dharun Ravi alone. If he had not become consumed with the fact that Tyler was gay and fixated on Tyler's request to use the dorm room alone for the evening there would have been no video and no suicide over the next few days. Dharun not only set up his web cam to watch Tyler and his friend but choose to blast it all over social media. This was disgraceful and negligent on his part and he should have been made much more responsible then guilty but only serving 30 days in jail. I believe that Molly Wei hold 5% responsibility regarding the suicide of Tyler Clementi due to her knowing and seeing both the social media portion and the web cam evidence and allowing Dharun Ravi to hang out in her dorm room while watching and waiting for Tyler to be victimized. I also hold Rutger's University at 5% responsibility in that the RA (regional assistant) of his dorm was told personally and in writing by Tyler of the horrible crimes done to him in his own dorm by his own dorm mate and nothing was done. This should have been addressed by the RA/University right at the moment the complaints were provided to them and at least a temporary solution arrived at for the safety of Tyler and future students who may find themselves in very scary, uncomfortable, horrific situations.
2. Is there something that could have been done to prevent this? It seems like some people watched the posted video, why didn't anyone step up?
I don't know that we will ever know if anything could have been done to prevent this tragedy but it certainly would have been a much better outcome if someone had at least reached out to him as a friend, confidante or someone who could make him feel safe to be who he was in his own dorm room. There are many people and many situations that may have been able to curtail Tyler's suicide but no one did anything. I think this is so sad for Tyler and for what it says about our society in general. This was viewed by other's on video, social media and discussed at least among Dharun and Molly and the RA at the dorm on the Rutgers Campus. I have studied in my psychology classes a situation reaction called "bystander affect" this is were people stand by and let bad situations happen to others right in front of them and do nothing to help the victim. This has been seen most recently in the New York subways where a gentleman was pushed into the subway tracks by another person and no one did anything to help him, they just watched him die when the subway came and killed him. One of the most disturbing elements to me was that someone took a picture for a newspaper and the crowd remembers the flash from his camera. Wow!!! This is not a new or old phenomenon and I have no answers as to what happens to us as people when we encounter these horrific situations but I do hope that I would react to someone in harms way in the way I would hope others would respond to me; by helping me!
3. How do you think that anti-bullying laws will impact cases like this?
I believe that the anti-bullying laws will help with cases like Tyler Clemeti's. I think that providing people with some way to report this type of abuse helps others to feel empowered to let those in charge research if anything is or has been done to the person. I believe that with teachers, medical personnel, etc being legally obligated to report any signs of physical abuse in the same way now as in situations where bullying abuse is suspected it allows the victim to have a voice as well as those that view or see it happening. It can be reported and then at least the person that has seen it take place can at least give the victim a chance at making it stop and those that are doing the bullying can be held accountable for their abusing of others.
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