University's routinely put strangers together their freshman year of college. Students have no choice about their roommate selection, and it is often contentious. University counceling services report the number one psychological distress freshman year is not academic stress or difficulties related to being away from home. It is living with someone who they do not get along with. In the wake of the tragic events at Rutgers University last month, where a student took his life in response to being publicly humiliated, what should those of us on college campuses across the United States think about and try to learn from this? What should we change so it does not become a pattern?
First, is bullying tolerated at Rutgers? I would say no, not on paper at least. This comes directly from the Student Code of Conduct: "All members of the Rutgers University community are expected to behave in an ethical and moral fashion, respecting the human dignity of all members of the community and resisting behavior that may cause danger or harm to others through violence, theft, or bigotry. All members of the Rutgers University community are expected to adhere to the civil and criminal laws of the local community, state, and nation, and to regulations promulgated by the University."
That sounds entirely reasonable, and pretty standard. How do you inform incoming freshman that they are to adhere to this code of conduct? What are the consequences for failing to do so? Have students been disciplined and expelled for violating this code? Are freshman told about these cases at freshman orientation?
When Dharun Ravi posted to his Twitter account that he was filming his freshman roommate, Tyron Clementi, having a sexual encounter, commenting on the live feed he was streaming from the web cam hidden in their room, through the computer of his high school friend, Molly Wei, he was clearly not acting in a moral and ethical fashion. I suspect that neither Molly nor Dharun would want their sexual encounters publicly broadcast--whether they were with members of the same sex, the opposite sex, or if it were a solo performance. For the perpetrators to label such an aggregous act a "prank" is to make it sound "playful". Their act was about power and control, and while they may have been well liked students in high school, there is nothing nice about them. Nice people do not orchestrate the public humiliation of fellow students for their personal entertainment.
There are two things that I hope result from this. The first is that universities take more seriously the complaints that students have about their roommates, and that they develop a "Plan B" for when these situations are truely untenable. The second is that we have so few opportunities to evaluate the underlying character of people, and for Molly Wei and Dharun Ravi we have the uncontested fact that they perpetrated this invasion on a fellow student. What motivated them is unknowable, but it reflects directly on their character, and I hope that this act follows them into their 20's, 30's, 40's and beyond.
Both of the accused have made a statement, through lawyers, related to the potential charges of a hate crime, and the media response to their action. They feel they have been treated unfairly. How so? Public humiliation seems an appropriate response to their act--they dished it out, but they can't take it? That is so often the case--the mean spirited are the one's least well equipped to manage the consequences, which were tragic in this case. When they are treated in exactly the manner they inflicted on another, they are no better prepared to tolerate what is unleashed. One moment they are laughing at someone else's humiliation at their hands, the next they are running for cover.
No comments:
Post a Comment