Most of us go through high school with a group of cohorts who are famous only in their own minds. Once in a while a class produces a genuine celebrity. West Windsor-Plainsboro High School had a hot streak with several classes in the 1980s. Brian Singer, Class of 1984, moved on to become the producer of the hit television show, “House,” and director of the X-Men movies and “The Usual Suspects,” written by a 1985 WW-P alumnus, Chris McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for it in 1995.
Another WW-P student of that era, Ethan Hawke, transferred to the Hun School and became the actor who starred in “Dead Poets Society,” among other movies.
Few high school classes see a classmate rocket into the national spotlight within months of graduation. But that is exactly the dubious claim to fame now attached to High School North’s Class of 2010 — thanks to the accusations and imminent trial of Dharun Ravi in the cyber-spying case involving Tyler Clementi, his gay roommate who subsequently committed suicide.
The case has been used widely as an example of the horrors of cyber-bullying, particularly when aimed at a vulnerable member of a minority. School districts throughout the state have been ordered to implement anti-bullying policies. For some in the WW-P district, the case is also a reflection on the school district. On several occasions critics have cited Ravi as the kind of student produced by a district that spends increasing amounts of money to attain the highest possible SAT scores, but fails to provide its students with common sense and basic values.
A story in the February 3 WW-P News that summarized the effect of the newly formed anti-bullying policy elicited the following online comment:
“What a legacy Ravi leaves behind in WWP. OMG! Read up on the New Yorker piece of this week to see just what WWP schools produced in one Dharun Ravi.”
The post links to the online version of the February 6 New Yorker — seemingly another national black eye for the WW-P schools. But a careful reading of the 13,000-word article by staff writer Ian Parker tells another story.
Summarizing the public condemnation of Ravi’s alleged behavior, Parker writes: “It became widely understood that a closeted student at Rutgers had committed suicide after video of him having sex with a man was secretly shot and posted online. In fact, there was no posting, no observed sex, and no closet.”
Thanks to in-depth reporting, including interviews with several other members of the North Class of 2010, the New Yorker’s Parker describes a virtual world that most teenagers today take for granted, but that their parents might find unsettling. In high school Ravi toughened himself up hanging out online at a website called Formspring, “a place where teenagers show themselves able, or not, to withstand online assaults.”
For both Ravi and Clementi, the awkward first moments in the freshman year dorm room were preceded by online research, in which each thought he had gained some valuable insight into the person with whom he would be sharing an 11 by 16-foot room.
Ravi exchanged E-mails and instant messages with North classmate Jason Tam. Ravi had googled Clementi’s E-mail address and determined that Clementi had posted comments at Justusboys, a gay pornography and discussion site. “WTF,” Ravi wrote in various Twitter posts. “Found out my roommate is gay.”
For most of the media that — and other disparaging remarks about gays — was the stuff of blaring headlines. The New Yorker dug deeper. Some of Ravi’s online peers saw an opportunity in the situation. “He’ll bring back mad hot girls to your room and then you can be like / ladies / im not gay.”
And beyond being gay, Clementi had another attribute that may have been even more undesirable to the self-consciously hip Ravi. Parker quotes an E-mail from Ravi to Tam: “I was f—-ing hoping for someone with a gmail but no.” As Parker explains, “Clementi’s Yahoo E-mail address symbolized a grim, dorky world, half seen, of fish tanks and violins. Ravi’s I.M.s about Tyler’s presumed poverty were far more blunt than those about sexual orientation. At one point during his exchanges with Tam that weekend, Ravi wrote, ‘Dude I hate poor people’.”
Clementi harbored his own pre/misconceptions about his new roommate, according to the New Yorker’s perception.
“Clementi’s I.M. records offer a peculiarly intimate view of his first few hours with Ravi, after both sets of parents had left. As Ravi unpacked, Clementi was chatting with [Hannah] Yang [a woman who had been in his high school orchestra]. ‘I’m reading his twitter page and umm he’s sitting right next to me,’ he wrote. ‘I still don’t kno how to say his name.” Yang replied, ‘Fail!!!!! that’s hilarious.’ Clementi told Yang that Ravi’s parents had seemed ‘sooo Indian first gen americanish,’ adding that they ‘defs owna dunkin’ — a Dunkin’ Donuts. Clementi and Ravi seem to have responded in similarly exaggerated ways to perceived hints of modest roots in the other.”
At another point Clementi lamented to an online friend that he needed to have someone to talk to — “I NEED conversation.” When the friend tried to give Clementi advice on how to start a conversation, Clementi said he knew how to: “I’ve googled it like a million times / I kno all the ‘rules.’”
Google probably taught Clementi as much about interpersonal communication skills as Justusboys taught Ravi about alternative lifestyles. Rather than one being a bully and the other a victim, both are portrayed as relatively equal participants in “a remote, electronic dynamic between the two students that was never quite overtaken by real-world engagement — even after they moved into a tiny room together.”
The communications environment may be vastly different, but the essential wisdom of these two college freshmen was, like so many through the ages, sadly lacking.
#b#Ravi Trial To Start in March#/b#
Jury selection was scheduled to begin this Friday, February 17, in the case of High School North alumnus Dharun Ravi, charged with using a webcam to spy on his Rutgers’ dormitory roommate, Tyler Clementi, having a sexual encounter with another man. Clementi committed suicide days after the spying incident, on September 22, 2010, by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.
Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman has also ruled that potential jurors will be told that Clementi, the alleged victim of cyber-spying, will not be testifying in the case because he is deceased but that Ravi is not charged with causing Clementi’s death. Ravi is facing 15 counts after a grand jury indictment that contains two second-degree counts of bias intimidation, each carrying 10 years in prison.
The name of the other man Ravi allegedly spied on has been kept private — identified only as “MB” in court documents. So far his name and address has only been revealed to Ravi and his attorney, Steven Altman, to prepare for Ravi’s defense. But potential jurors will learn the man’s identity as well, according to a January 20 ruling by Judge Berman.
The trial itself, expected to begin in March, may also be televised. Berman recently stated that InSession (formerly Court TV) could televise the proceedings under certain limitations concerning camera angles, lighting, and background noise. In January both the prosecution and defense attorneys said they had no objections to the broadcast if the broadcast were unobtrusive.
