Mary L. Gray, AAA member, is an Senior Researcher at Microsoft
Research New England and Associate Professor of Communications
and Culture at Indiana University. She recently wrote an article
for the Huffington Post on how tragedies, such as Tyler
Clementi’s death, of bullying and harassment are particularly
difficult in a homophobic society. Below is an excerpt. To view
the entire article, click here. Tyler Clementi’s death on Sept.
22, 2010 was one of several highly publicized youth suicides
that fall. In several cases, media coverage and political
discourse connected these tragedies to cases of on- and offline
harassment saturated in homophobic sentiment. Research among
students suggests that these hostilely charged environments are
the norm rather than the exception. But rallying to punish
Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student standing trial for 15
criminal counts, including tampering with witnesses and
evidence, invasion of privacy, and bias intimidation of Tyler
Clementi, does not do justice to Clement