Suicide sparks outrage on Rutgers campus

A quiet 18-year-old violinist from New Jersey has apparently killed himself after his Rutgers University roommate, also 18, allegedly live-streamed video of him kissing another man. Now, some outraged Rutgers gay students are lobbying for separate housing facilities for the campus' gay community.

Tyler Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, apparently tweeted on Sept. 19 from his account (which has been deleted, but is cached on Google): "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

Now both Ravi and his friend Molly Wei, 18, are charged with invasion of privacy and could get up to five years in prison, the Associated Press says. Clementi jumped off a bridge Sept. 22, AP reported, and authorities just confirmed Thursday that a body found a day ago is his.

At least one gay rights group is calling Clementi's death a hate crime, AP says, quoting Garden State Equality Chairman Steven Goldstein: "We are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others' lives as a sport."

About a hundred students demonstrated Wednesday night on campus chanting, "We're here, we're queer, we're not going home." Gay students told the school newspaper, the Daily Targum, that they want their own space to live in where they can feel safe and free from bullying.

Coincidentally, the college had launched a two-year project Wednesday to encourage civility in New Jersey and on campus.

Robert O'Brien, an anthropology instructor who helped organize Wednesday's protest, told The Upshot that the university needs to hear out lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students' demand for designated gay-friendly spaces in dorms instead of just talking about civility.

"Students are told [by university officials] that all of Rutgers is safe and why would you need a safe place in your dorm?" O'Brien said. "And they're told they don't understand the way the world works. And then they come to my office and they cry and they scream." O'Brien, who didn't know Clementi, said he knew another gay student who committed suicide last year.

It's unclear whether Clementi was openly gay. Only three of the 50 students who lived on his hall said they knew him when asked by a counselor, according to the New York Times.

In a statement announcing the suicide, Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick asked the campus to commit to "the values of civility, dignity, compassion and respect for each other." He didn't mention Clementi's sexual orientation or a webcam incident. A university spokesman tells The Upshot that he is not aware of the university planning a gay awareness or anti-bullying initiative.

Unnamed friends of Ravi defended him to Rutgers' student newspaper. "He just wanted to see what was going on," one said, adding that Ravi closed the computer window when he saw what was happening between Clementi and the visitor.

But another tweet suggests Ravi knew Clementi was gay and thought it was unappealing: "Anyone with iChat I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it's happening again," said a tweet from Ravi's account before he allegedly tried to capture a Clementi encounter with a man for a second time.

The next day, AP says, Clementi updated his Facebook account to say: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

A blogger at Gawker found posts on a gay message board that appear to be from Clementi in which he asks for advice about his roommate's spying. The day before Clementi's suicide, the poster said he checked his roommate's Twitter account and saw the post that suggested he'd been watched by webcam.

"It would be nice to get him in trouble," he wrote, but said he thought the college would most likely just get him another roommate if he told on him. He said he told his resident adviser about what happened, and that he was upset that his roommate seemed to want to make fun of him for being gay.

Gay and lesbian teens are four times more likely than other teens to commit suicide, and 9 out of 10 report being bullied, according to recent studies. Parental tolerance for their sexuality tends to reduce the suicide risk, one recent study suggests.

After a spate of suicides by bullied gay teens, writer and gay activist Dan Savage has started a video project called "It Gets Better" to show gay teens that they can overcome bullying.

Psychologist Jennifer Hartstein told CBS that the use of social media in this case may have compounded the trauma for Clementi.

"It is one thing to spy and watch it yourself, and another to broadcast to thousands who might want to tune in," she said. "I think that's really important -- they are missing the boat -- that social media is a major way to get information out and he broadcast it to who knows how many tuned in and watched what was going on."

(Photo of Rutgers students at a "lie-in" for Clementi: AP)