Ian Parker's expansive reporting in the New Yorker on the Tyler Clementi case is definitely worth a read. The friend who pointed me to the piece said it would change my opinion about Dharun "Worst Roommate Ever" Ravi: "This case has taken on a life of its own that isn't based in reality. There was no sex tape! There was no broadcast over the Internet! There was no outing!" But perhaps she oversold his lack of culpability to me. Because while it's clear that things are never as black and white as a juror might want them to be -- and I agree that only the person who takes his life is responsible for killing himself -- I came away thinking he was not only a major douche who had broken the law, that he was arrogant for refusing to take a no-jail plea deal that also helped to ensure he would not be deported. Decide for yourself HERE.UPDATE: I deliberately left my main point out of this post as I wanted to leave it to the reader to decide for himself. But given some of the comments, I will say this: The defense would like us to now believe that Ravi is being swept up in some "anti-bullying" backlash that does not really fit this situation, but I'm not so sure I agree. He has not been charged with violating ome reactionary anti-bullying statute. He's been charged with invasion of privacy (which he clearly did), witness and evidence tampering (which he clearly did -- and I don't even blame him; he was scared and tried to get his story straight with friends and delete tweets), and bias intimidation. The ONLY part -- and admittedly the most serious part -- that is debatable is the bias part, which a jury can decide. But even if you believe his defenders who say he did not have hate toward gays, can you really see ANY situation where he would have done what he did -- setting up the camera to spy, tweeting about how gross it was, setting it up again and inviting others to come watch -- if his roomie had a chick over? I can't, so isn't that kind of the definition of a bias?
