Is Dharun Ravi a Hate Criminal?

By Preston Cooper

We all killed Tyler Clementi.

Two days ago, Judge Glenn Berman sentenced Rutgers student Dharun Ravi to thirty days in prison after he was found guilty of an assortment of charges, most prominent among them bias intimidation, another way of saying hate crime.

As a freshman at Rutgers, Ravi used a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, during a sexual encounter with another man. When Clementi discovered that Ravi had broadcasted his private life on the internet, he killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Though not directly charged with Clementi's murder, Ravi received fifteen criminal charges, including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy. Prosecutors argued that Ravi's actions constituted intimidating his roommate because of his sexual orientation, which is a hate crime under New Jersey law.

Despite being convicted of a hate crime, Ravi's thirty-day prison sentence was unexpected. Activists on both sides of the case cried foul, some saying that his sentence should have been no more than community service, others arguing that he should spend years in prison. In a surprising move, some gay rights activists made a case for community service, on the basis that Dharun Ravi was only one element of a complex network of social pressures that drove Tyler Clementi to kill himself.

And they're absolutely right. Most psychiatrists will tell you that few single events, like the webcam incident, drive a person to commit suicide. Tyler Clementi was a depressed person long before Ravi's juvenile behavior sent him over the edge. That's why I say that we all killed Tyler Clementi - we have all contributed, in one way or another, to the state of the world today that makes millions of gays and lesbians uncomfortable in their own skin.

So are we all guilty of hate crimes? No, I wouldn't say we are. Because the world as a whole does not hate LGBT people; the world is simply not fully tolerant. During sentencing, Judge Berman refused to give Ravi a longer sentence because he did not believe Ravi hated Tyler Clementi. Like the world, Ravi was simply not fully tolerant.

In 2009, Congress passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extended the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. A hate crime, as defined by previous legislation, occurs when an individual is specifically targeted because of his or her membership in some group - in the Clementi case, the gay community.

So, do Dharun Ravi's actions constitute a hate crime? It is true that Ravi had a prejudice against gays, and that prejudice drove him to commit the crimes he did (invasion of privacy and others). But hate crime charges should be reserved for violent crimes, threats of violence, or particularly repugnant hate speech. These are all cases, as the legislation specifies, where the crime is clearly motivated by hate.

Like Judge Berman, I don't believe Ravi hates gay people. He, like the rest of the world, is not yet fully tolerant. But hate? Hate does not belong to Ravi, nor to most people in the world. Hate belongs only to a few individuals and fringe groups, and they are the intended targets of hate crime law in America.

We want to help those like Ravi, who are not fully tolerant of the LGBT community, become more accepting. We don't want to lock them away for hatred they don't possess. Ravi's actions were disgraceful, but they do not warrant prison time. I hope that when Ravi is released, he will overcome his intolerance, and the rest of the world will follow.