A year ago I wrote a column entitled "Bullying is Deadly" in which I wrote about the effect of anti-gay harassment and bullying resulting in the death by suicide of a Rutger’s freshman named Tyler Clementi. Celementi jumped off a bridge after his roommate, Dharum Ravi, posted a ‘hidden cam’ video of Clementi kissing another male in his dorm room.
Ravi has pleaded not guilty to the charge of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. His co-accused, hall mate Wolly Wei, who viewed the video, has not been charged in exchange for testifying against Ravi. On April 20th, 2011, Ravi was indicted by a Middlesex County grand jury on 15 counts, including the charges of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, witness tampering and evidence tampering. His defense has launched an appeal. Wei’s charges were dropped in exchange for her testimony and the completion of a 3-year counseling and community service program.
In the same month that Clementi killed himself, four other young males also suicided as a result of harassment over being gay; Asher Brown, 13, Billy Lucas, 15, Raymond Chase, 19, and Seth Walsh, 13.
To this list can now be added Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, who killed himself outside his home in Buffalo, New York after being bullied and abused by at least three other students following a post online in which he talked about his "confusion" over his sexual identity. In May 2011, he recorded a YouTube video for the It Gets Better campaign in which he self-identifies as bisexual, talks about his lack of "guy friends" and how all his friends are girls and how he has been bullied for that; how happy he was with the support he had received from strangers via the Internet who encouraged him to hold his head up high, be proud, and carry on. Four months later he was dead.
Police have opened a criminal investigation. The Amherst Police Department’s Special Victims Unit has said it will determine whether to charge the students with harassment, cyber-harassment or hate crimes. The Police said three students in particular might have been involved.
In a recent interview with Anderson Cooper on Anderson 360, Rodemeyer’s sister, Alyssa, spoke about how the harassment continued even after Jamey’s death. On the day of Jamey’s wake, she and a group of friends, with the encouragement of her parents, attended a Home Coming dance at the school she and Jamey attended. When the Lady Gaga song "Born This Way" came on, she and her group started chanting Jamey’s name in tribute to him.
The three individuals who had harassed him, and apparently some others, reacted by chanting "We’re glad you’re dead!" and "You’re better off dead!" referring to Jamey.
The three boys had, over the previous year, posted several comments to Jamey’s Formspring page, writing things like "JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND [sic] UGLY. HE MUST DIE!" and "I wouldn’t care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"
Jamey had just started his freshman year at the high school but the bullying predated that, starting in middle school. He had told his parents and school counselors about it. Jamey did everything he was supposed to, even reaching out to others online in support. By all accounts, he was a nice kid, open, friendly, intelligent and caring of other people. One need only view his It Gets Better video to see that. And now he’s dead, at 14. And his tormentors continue to torment and apparently are of the opinion they did nothing wrong.
According to Captain Michael Camilleri of the Amherst Police Department no bullying laws exist in the state of New York. Even though the Special Victims Unit is investigating the circumstances leading to his death, Camilleri has stated it is not clear if "there is anything criminal or not." That being the case, police would have to determine whether aggravated harassment charges were appropriate. Whether or not the three suspects would be tried in juvenile court would depend on whether the alleged bullies were 16 years of age or older, Camilleri said.
Donna Zimpfer, an assistant criminal justice professor at Hilbert College, has stated it is extremely important that bullying charges be severe enough to send a clear message because, as it stands now, there is a significant amount of ‘grey area’ where the law pertains to bullying and harassment.
"Harassment here in New York state is a violation....[I]t’s important to understand that a violation is really no different than a traffic ticket. It’s most likely something that the family court would not even entertain, unless it escalates to something bigger where we see some true physical injuries on a person," she said.
Based on the type of bullying Jamey allegedly endured, such as cyber bullying, charges could be limited to harassment or aggravated harassment. Hate crime or aggravated suicide charges would be more severe.
Bullying has evolved beyond mere schoolyard teasing and taunts. It is not "teasing"; it is a form of harassment which, in any other circumstance, would be illegal. The National Center for Educational Statistics, a program within the United States Department of Education, reports 28 percent of students aged 12 to 18 reported being bullied in school during the 2008-2009 school year. Despite bullying appearing to slow down as children get older from a high of 39 percent of all sixth graders to 20 percent of high school seniors, harassment of students based on sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity remains at 90 percent.
Ironically, Jamey’s suicide coincided with National Suicide Awareness Week as well as the United States Department of Education’s first national conference on bullying on September 21st in Washington D.C.
His death has garnered international attention. Celebrities ranging from Lady Gaga, one of Jamey’s icons, to Ricky Martin, Perez Hilton and Dan Savage, founder of It Gets Better and a well-known openly gay sex columnist, to Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer have expressed outrage, sadness, and support for his family and called for tougher harassment and anti-bullying laws.
That’s wonderful and such calls should be applauded. But each time we hear of these suicides-due-to-bullying deaths, we hear the same calls for action and nothing is done. School districts speak out against bullying and talk about their anti-bullying programs, but nothing significant is done. Bullies are never held accountable. Parents too often turn a blind eye to it, refusing to believe it is their child who is engaging in this or, if the little darling is involved, "it’s just kids being kids." It’s not.
I worked on a program through Planned Parenthood a number of years ago trying to get anti-bullying material, specifically that aimed at sexual orientation, into schools throughout Southern Alberta, both urban and rural. Some school districts did take the material and "made it available" through guidance counselor offices to those who asked. Others flat out refused to accept the material, citing "parental concerns."
When various right-wing groups, posing as "concerned parents" learned of the material, they immediately launched a campaign denouncing "the gay agenda" and how we were attempting to infiltrate the schools with our "pro-homosexuality propaganda." Considerable energy, that would have been better spent in reaching out to the youth who needed reaching out to and in refining and updating the material, was spent in debate at school board level with these people. And when some of us finally refused to continue meeting or debating with them, refused to continue to supply them with a platform to spew their misinformed views and arrogant refusal to learn, were accused of stifling "healthy discussion"! Somehow, because we refused to be subjected to this vitriol, we became anti-democratic!
That was over ten years ago. And we haven’t progressed very much, have we?