What the New Yorker Piece on Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi Gets Wrong
The New Yorker has published a major new article by Ian Parker on the September 2010 death of Rutgers first-year Tyler Clementi who, targeted by his roommate in a campaign of webcam spying and harassment, killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. (Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, will face trial next month on a long list of charges arising from the incident.)
The article provides the fullest and clearest account to date of the circumstances that led to Clementi’s suicide, and it’s well worth reading. But it bungles some important elements of the story, and bungles them in ways that serve to obscure important questions.
Here’s a crucial passage from the Parker story, debunking the received wisdom about the story: