<p>With the outcry raised by the young man’s suicide, I suspect Rutgers will have no choice but to expel the two people already arrested. This is WAY beyond a youthful prank.</p>
<p>Appalling. Disgusting. Words fail me.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to the family and friends of the young man.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it can be solely because of homophobia (altho it might have been…may be hard to prove).</p>
<p>in another case, a student was annoyed at being repeatedly sexiled, so he taped his roomie in a heterosexual situation.</p>
<p>Of course it’s very wrong to videotape in either situation…that goes without saying. And, it’s also wrong (altho obviously much less wrong) to sexile someone from their rightfully-paid room.</p>
<p>I feel so sorry for both of the guys who were filmed and for their families and friends.</p>
<p>I bet that the roommate and his female friend wouldn’t have filmed a hetero encounter, but thought a gay encounter was fair game because they didn’t recognize gays’ humanity.</p>
<p>I don’t see the camera operators and other voyours’ actions as reflective of schools not teaching antibullying or proper use iof technology.</p>
<p>I view their actions as due to their own lack of humanity. They were old enough to know the impact of their actions, and deserve to have the book thrown at them. I have no pity for them.</p>
<p>I think the main issue is the invasion of privacy, the mockery, the cruelty, the blackmail. I’ve heard of this kind of thing happening in straight situations as well. Either such case is equally despicable. I’m glad that the parents are “fully cooperating with authorities,” and I hope the two unclassy classmates have their lives ruined. They ruined one life; let theirs be effectively over as well. I have zero sympathy for them, and no excuses could possibly dissuade me in this, including thoughtlessness, it being a “prank,” or anything of the sort.</p>
<p>Even if I give the guilty roommate the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was frustrated due to repeatedly being sexiled and not exaccerbated by homophobic leanings, that is no excuse for what he did. He left the room, leaving his roommate to believe that he had privacy - he lured his roommate into a false sense of security and violated his rights in a most despicable manner. And given the reported circumstances, it does not seem that the guilt party deserves that much latitude - his poor roommate asked for 2.5 hours not the entire night, not at unreasonable hours and although more than once, not on a nightly basis. </p>
<p>If this doesn’t warrant expulsion what does? How will they attend classes from prison? If the university doesn’t expell these two they are setting a bad example of excusing morally bankrupt behavior for what appear to be academically high performing students. The girl is in pharmacy - not a flaky choice. I can’t help but wonder if the university would act differently if these were less academically gifted students. It seems to me that in academia this is the same sort of unequal treatment that celebrities enjoy when their illegal partying clashes with the legal system.</p>
<p>bchan, I think they are two entirely different issues that do not even deserve to be in the same paragraph – although I’m sure the roommate’s attorney will try to link them. Sexiled or not, and by whatever orientation, filming someone is against the law as described in nj.com and quoted also by another poster. Someone who put a camera in a non-sexiled situation should be no more and no less culpable as this guy.</p>
<p>Apparently they also don’t teach taste in schools, anymore – not in the high schools from whence the students hailed, not at Rutgers, and I guess not in the families.</p>
<p>Shameful. And it would have been shameful without the suicide. Just of a whole other category with it.</p>
<p>I would be horrified if my daughters were ever to consider being persuaded to be drawn into such a “challenge.” (Thankfully, I doubt they would.)</p>
<p>I don’t know where to begin and end with my outrage. It’s also the issue of having no respect/self-respect about sex itself anymore. Hey, why don’t we just do it in the streets like dogs? Why the need for bedrooms, dorm rooms? :rolleyes: Maybe one aspect of punishment for the 2 perps (who are also pervs, as far as I’m concerned) is that they get to be filmed during their entire imprisonment – every aspect --bathing, toileting, etc.</p>
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</p>
<p>Yes, yes, and yes.</p>
<p>One thing my daughters find disturbing is the “anything goes” for some young people, you don’t have to be religious to have morals, be human, have a conscience. The internet has become a way to step up bullying and taunt people. I think until very strict repecussions are put in place at all levels of school, it will keep getting worse.
Maybe you can’t make some people empathetic, able to feel another’s pain or care, but you can make them pay a price for acting out on it.</p>
<p>epiphany - I don’t think perpetrator’s actions are excusable, my point was that this argument for leniency is faulty although I’m sure you’re correct that their attorney will try to use the sexiled argument as a mitigating circumstance that drove them to bad judgement and illegal actions. Even on this thread there are those who want to see these two as “good kids” who made a horrible mistake because all indications are that they are good students without a criminal history. The facts in this case just don’t add up to good kids gone astray, what they did was not only illegal it was immoral. </p>
<p>As to not teaching morality in the schools, I think in some circles the push for being the best (best test scores, most AP’s, most Ivy admits) has distracted educators from emphasizing some of the moral lessons that young minds need to explore, preparing for a standardized test doesn’t lend itself to deep exploration of anything - that takes a really good teacher who pushes for true education not just test results. And it has distracted parents too - one parent with a very troubled child once told me “well if the school expects to keep their ranking they better keep my kid, he’s part of their top test demographic”. It’s that kind of thinking that gets us bright kids in academically rigorous programs without a moral compass to steer by.</p>
<p>"As to not teaching morality in the schools, "</p>
<p>The schools can’t do everything. I think teaching morality is the job of parents. By the time they get to college, people are responsible for their own actions. Blaming the parents/schools/society is not appropriate.</p>
<p>^ I cannot agree more with bchan’s fine reply.</p>
<p>Yes, they can, NSM. They certainly did when I was growing up. Basic human virtues such as kindness, courtesy, respect were taught. Not as separate curriculum, but as integrated within literature, social studies, current events, biography studies. The difference today is that a lot of inessentials are being taught which could in fact be eliminated.</p>
<p>It’s a both/and. Schools as well as parents need to teach morality directly, as well as to model it. Object lessons, reflections on human actions, are often embedded in material read by children, not just actions viewed by children or questions asked by them (of their parents).</p>
<p>Ethics was a part of my son’s curriculum at his boarding school. It was a major part of his family education as well.</p>
<p>Schools do teach morality. Because someone doesn’t develop good morals/ethics reflects their own deficiencies, not the schools. It’s not just schools and parents jobs to teach ethics. It’s also the job of the person to learn such things.</p>
<p>^ Agree with NSM. It is the parent’s job to teach morals, not the schools. Boarding schools are a special case because in that case the school is acting as the parent.</p>
<p>Here is the Rutgers campus paper’s article about this:</p>
<p>[</a>" + artTitle.replace(“-”,“”) + " - " + “Daily Targum” + " - " + “News” + "](<a href=“http://www.dailytargum.com/news/students-arrested-for-privacy-invasion-1.2348508]”>http://www.dailytargum.com/news/students-arrested-for-privacy-invasion-1.2348508)</p>
<p>I was impressed by the fact that the Rutgers code of conduct has a specific provision against videotaping or recording another student without his/her permission.</p>
<p>" A strange, older male later arrived at the room, they said. Ravi went to Wei’s room, where he used a computer to access footage of the room from his webcam, they said.</p>
<p>Ravi had no intention of witnessing any kind of intimate encounter between the two, but rather wanted to see if anything unusual was taking place inside his room, as he was not familiar with Clementi’s guest, they said.</p>
<p>“He just wanted to see what was going on,” a student said.</p>
<p>Upon seeing what was taking place inside the room, Ravi immediately closed the window on the screen, the student said.</p>
<p>What b.s.</p>
<p>
Yeah, so was that before of after little Ravi did this:
</p>
<p>“Apparently they also don’t teach taste in schools, anymore – not in the high schools from whence the students hailed, not at Rutgers, and I guess not in the families.”</p>
<p>Well… They are from New Jersey. Can’t hardly say I’m surprised.</p>
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<p>No. Boarding schools get more of it because of acting in place of parents, but the reason that all students need both schools and parents in this enterprise is that there are too many situations, and contexts, than can be covered by just one authority figure. Situations which require a moral evaluation are elastic: they cannot be compartmentalized to just time-frames and environments in which the parents are involved. As I said earlier, moral “lessons,” and certainly discussions, are implied in literature, in historical situations, etc. The very least that is asked of a competent teacher is to pose tough moral questions – whether or not the teacher directly answers those questions definitively. He or she should be getting students to think about consequences and values.</p>
<p>Further, students need more than just a couple of voices of authority when it comes to the varied moral/ethical situations which become increasingly evident even in their young lives. There’s no such thing as being morally neutral in school and still being an effective teacher.</p>
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<p>Uh huh. And then began to tweet to his friends about what was going on and how they could see it too. The tweets exist.</p>