Tyler Clementi and the Uproar Over Bullying
On Sept. 22, 2010, Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, threw himself from the George Washington Bridge in New York City after his roommate secretly recorded a video of Clementi kissing another man — and allegedly put the news out on Twitter. The most publicized of a spate of suicides by teenagers who allegedly suffered from bullying — among them, Seth Walsh, 16, of Tehachapi, Calif., who died on Sept. 28; Asher Brown, 13, of Houston, who shot himself on Sept. 23; Billy Lucas, 15, of Greensberg, Ind., who hanged himself on Sept. 9 — the Clementi case put a spotlight on what many were calling a full-fledged crisis; it also highlighted the way bullying has spread exponentially with the growth of the Internet and social networks. His roommate Dharun Ravi and a friend, Molly Wei, have been charged with invasion of privacy. Their lawyers deny that their clients posted the video on the Internet.