On Monday, in a New Jersey court, Judge Glenn Berman sentenced
Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail for
crimes that emanated from his freshman-year spying on a former
roommate with a webcam. That roommate, Tyler Clementi, was seen
briefly kissing another male. Ravi’s snooping — and then
“tweeting” about it and sharing the video feed with several friends
— is widely assumed to have been a factor in Clementi’s September,
2010 suicide, accomplished by jumping off the George Washington
Bridge.
However, a suicide note left by Clementi, which has not been
made public, reportedly did not name the Ravi-related events as the
reasons for his suicide. And an in-depth story of the lives and
interactions of Clementi and Ravi in
New Yorker magazine shows Clementi not particularly
bothered, at least initially, by the spying: “But its not like he
left the cam on or recorded or anything / he just like took a five
sec peep lol.” Furthermore, Clementi had gone to a gay student
association meeting at Rutgers and told a friend “I would consider
myself out… if only there was someone for me to come out to.”
The desperation of a young man driven to end his own life is
nearly beyond comprehension — and must certainly be so to his
parents. But sadness, even tragedy, must not be confused with
injustice.
Ravi, who, like Clementi, was 18 at the time of the “spying,”
was also sentenced to 3 years of probation, a $10,000 fine,
counseling, and 300 hours of community service by the judge who
scolded Ravi for “insensitivity” and for being unapologetic for his
actions during the trial. However, Judge Berman suggested that
Ravi’s upbringing, immaturity, and unlikeliness to do this sort of
thing again weighed against a longer jail sentence. More
importantly, but not stated by the judge, it weighed against there
ever having been a felony prosecution.
The New York Times reports that a number of gay
activists opposed Ravi serving jail time, recognizing that his
behavior “was not the blatantly bigoted or threatening actions that
typically define hate crimes.” They rightly fear public perception
of “payback,” which is not the purpose of our justice system and
which may not have happened had the victim not been gay or not
committed suicide. The latter is critical in that Ravi faced no
charges in direct connection with Clementi’s death.
Nevertheless, it surprised many that the judge didn’t give Ravi
a longer sentence based on multiple convictions, including at least
one
felony subject to up to 10 years in prison. Others believe the
penalty was just, including one gay activist who suggested that
“this was not a crime without bias.” While he meant to say that
Ravi’s crimes included or stemmed from bias, his words could be
construed with a more accurate meaning: without the claim of “bias”
behind Ravi’s actions, they might not have been considered a crime,
or at least not prosecuted.
Beyond the legitimate question of whether judges, lawyers, and
jurors can know what was in a person’s mind, is “bias” a reasonable
consideration for our legal system? True justice must punish acts,
not thoughts; Lady Justice, even if she could read minds, must not
peek through her blindfold.
Gay former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey penned a note
entitled “Don’t
make Dharun Ravi our anti-gay scapegoat.” The title is
confusing in the context of McGreevey saying that the guilty
verdict against Ravi “was a vindication of American justice,” but
his point seems to be that “homophobia was replete in Clementi’s
government, church and culture, not just Ravi’s stupidity” and that
prison “won’t cure Ravi of any bias against the LGBT
community.”
Apparently, McGreevey — who lied to the world, including to his
former wife about his sexuality, and who appointed his
male lover to a homeland security position for which the man was
not qualified — believes that Ravi has several million
co-conspirators. Yes, we’re all guilty (well, not McGreevey or
other gays) for Clementi’s death — even though McGreevey knows no
better than we do why the young man felt compelled to end his own
life.
The now 20-year old Ravi was found guilty of a range of crimes
that he did commit — again, none relating directly to Clementi’s
death — including invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence.
But would he have been charged with any of them other than in
connection with a hate crime such as “bias intimidation”?
That charge of bias
intimidation, which Ravi was convicted of, has an Orwellian
air, a stench of the dark, fetid, stultifying side of political
correctness. The crime, as it name suggests, occurs when an offense
“was committed with a purpose to intimidate the victim or any
person or entity in whose welfare the victim is interested because
of race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation,
gender identity or expression, national origin, or ethnicity” or
because “the victim or the victim’s property was selected to be the
target of the offense” because of one of those same characteristics
of the victim.
These laws do not bring equal protection to all Americans; they
turn some Americans into second-class citizens. The degree of our
second-classness is proportional to how many “majority” (or, as
some on the left would suggest, “oppressor”) groups we are part of,
e.g. heterosexual, Caucasian, Christian, and male (even though
women are a majority of the population) and how few of those same
groups a victim is part of. (If you doubt this conclusion, consider
the hyper-political second-degree murder indictment of George
Zimmerman despite a growing raft of evidence, which the special
prosecutor must have been aware of, supporting his story of
self-defense against Trayvon Martin.)
While Ravi isn’t Caucasian, the divisions caused by our legal
system’s approach is emphasized by Internet discussions such as
“Dharun
Ravi’s Biggest Liability: He Was Indian”; yet it is equally
valid to wonder whether he would have been treated even more
aggressively by prosecutors had he been white. What sort of justice
system allows, even encourages, that sort of analysis?
“Bias” and “hate crimes” laws create both the perception and the
reality of a system being biased against offering equal protection
of the law to all; they erode our nation’s character as a people
united as Americans (and people who hope to become Americans).
As if the bias intimidation law’s usual implementation isn’t bad
enough, it also allows a charge of the attempt to commit
bias intimidation. This is an invitation to prosecutorial
intimidation and undue leverage, even blackmail, by any “minority
group” member against other members of society.
In Ravi’s case, his Twitter messages made clear that he thought
something of his “roommate…making out with a dude.” That’s not the
same as proving bias; indeed it is more likely, given that Ravi
then said “Yay” rather than “Yuck,” that he thought he’d stumbled
on one of life’s occasional bizarre happenstances, one that might
make for a laugh with his college friends who seemed more
interested in ethanol than education.
Ravi’s lawyer noted, “This case is contrived, is being treated
and exists today as if it’s a murder case.” Prosecutions like
Ravi’s smack of a civil rights movement, originally well-intended,
now run amok in a fog of lost perspective and a fog machine of
power-hungry special interest groups and political ladder-climbing
prosecutors.
The judge did not recommend deportation for Ravi. But with a
felony conviction on his record, what hope does he have at a future
in the United States? Some will say that destroying Ravi’s future
is just because he destroyed Clementi’s (something far from
demonstrated), but justice must be about the rule of law, not the
satisfaction of retribution.
Ravi was guilty of terrible judgment and of minor crimes, but
this case only went to trial because the “victim” (and I use that
term as loosely as with the idea of a “victim” of Romney’s barber
practice in high school) was gay. Instead, he now has a felony
record and his life, at least in America, is all but over.
Clementi’s suicide, although tragic, is not Ravi’s fault despite
his juvenile spying and “tweeting.”
It may seem unfair, but curing such unfairness by penalizing
thoughts is not the proper province of government. In terms of the
justice system, the advent of “hate crimes” laws and
politically-correct prosecutions make victims of people like Dharun
Ravi, who was nothing more than a bone-headed college student and
who never laid a finger on, or even insulted, Tyler Clementi.
This is not to downplay the anguish caused by a young man
killing himself. The loss that Clementi’s parents feel is one that
will be with them for the rest of their days; it is a loss that no
parent should ever experience.
“Hate crime” — really thought crime — laws divide rather than
unite our nation, causing justifiable fear among members of the
“majority” from interacting with others for fear of being accused
of holding an impermissible opinion. They cause some Americans to
recognize that prosecution of crimes against them will be pursued
less aggressively than of crimes against others, simply because we
have the apparent misfortune to be some combination of
heterosexual, white, straight, Christian, or male.
To be sure, American blacks, have historic grievances regarding
their treatment by our legal system. But mistreating others as some
sort of misplaced penance — or for political gain — does great
harm to our nation.
As for Dharun Ravi, he may have made Tyler Clementi think about
the bridge — and he may not have — but Clementi himself was
responsible for jumping. Tragedy following stupidity must not be
confused with injustice, and destroying a young man’s future as
retribution for a life ended prematurely must not be confused with
justice.
