AQA member and former co-chair Mary Gray has a piece in the Huffington Post on Tyler Clementi and rethinking homophobia.
Stop Blaming Dharun Ravi: Why We Need to Share Responsibility for the Loss of Tyler Clementi
By Mary L. Gray, PhD
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 Clementi’s life, nor does it move us one step closer to preventing another young person, like him, from turning to suicide.