Clementi, who was an 18-year old freshman at Rutgers, jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22 after his roommate allegedly filmed him during a sexual encounter with another man in their room and streamed the footage on the Internet. The news of Clementi’s death was released by authorities last Wednesday.
Two freshmen at Rutgers, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, have been charged with invasion of privacy in relation to Clementi’s death and face up to five years in jail if convicted.
In an e-mail to the LGBT community last Wednesday, Debra Bazarsky, director of the Princeton LGBT Center, noted that counseling was available for students who wanted to talk about the tragedy. Clementi’s death, which has been covered by numerous media outlets, has drawn attention to the larger issue of gay rights and bullying on college campuses.
The news of Clementi’s death coincidentally came on the same day that Rutgers launched “Project Civility,” a two-year campaign meant to spark campus-wide conversation about the importance of respecting others. The vigil held on Sunday night was the largest gathering on the New Brunswick campus in response to the tragedy.
Each person who arrived was given a candle and joined a circle forming around the podium and a sign that read “Rutgers Reacts: Uniting for Healing, Peace & Social Justice.”
Jenny Kurtz, the LGBTQ Program coordinator at Rutgers, thanked those in attendance as well as those who had communicated their support. She also thanked community members for “small gestures that mean so much.”
Next came 30 minutes of collective silence.
“We share a sense of sadness,” Barry Klassel, the Rutgers humanist chaplain, said after the silence. “I think we share a sense of disappointment and outrage and those can be positive things. And I think we share a sense of compassion for the individuals and families more directly affected by the events here, and it is very important that we share a sense of community, that we’re all in this together — Rutgers as a community and the wider world who has been following the events in the news. And I think we share a conviction that everyone needs a safe environment in which to live and to grow and to learn and to develop.”
Many students, including those who did not know Clementi, wept at the vigil, viewing the incident as part of broader insensitivity toward LGBT and other minority communities.
“I think everyone is just starting to really look at themselves and look at the people around them, and just realizing that it’s so much bigger than this one thing — it’s campus-wide, it’s nation-wide — and thinking that we really just have to change,” said Stephanie Satz, a Rutgers freshman.
The Princeton students who attended the vigil also said they viewed the incident leading to the tragedy as indicative of a larger problem, rather than a problem specific to Rutgers.
“I think it’s really important for Princeton to be represented here because I think it’s quite devastating that it hasn’t yet been recognized as part of a larger crisis yet,” Lea Steinecker ’11 said.
“It’s not just about bullying and about the hate,” she added. “To me, it’s also about the [prejudice] against LGBT people in general. I hope that out of this will come some sort of recognition that this is part of a much, much larger problem that is permeating American society much more than I think people have realized, and I’m hoping that a lot of Princeton students who might have not thought about this before realize that it is an issue even on the Princeton campus.”
Jason Weinreb ’12 echoed Steinecker’s sentiments.
“I think it’s important for Princeton University students to be here not only to show support to the Rutgers community, but to show that this is part of a problem that affects people everywhere,” he said.
Satz said that the event was discussed in all her classes. “Everyone’s reaction was that it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened,” she said. “Everyone realized how serious it is.”
But Satz explained that some Rutgers students do not think there has been enough dialogue at Rutgers yet.
“It’s in our face everywhere — we all hear the stories, we’re all hearing rumors and wondering what happened, we all have our opinion — but people haven’t really been too vocal about it from what I’ve seen,” explained Mark Bittner, a junior at Rutgers.
Bittner explained that one reason why the campus community might be quiet is because the school has viewed its diversity as a source of pride.
“We’re one of the most diverse schools in the country,” he said. “We celebrate our diversity. We’re trying to express our differences ... and just to see a tragedy like this because somebody was different is just a huge shock. It’s foreign to most of us.”
Associate Dean of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush, who encountered the group of Princeton students as they were on their way to the event, decided to join them at the vigil.
“I think it’s great that Princeton students are taking the time to come and show their support,” he said, adding that “this is another instance of Princeton students taking the lead and faculty following.”
—Staff writers Jason Jung and Jenna McCarthy contributed reporting.
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