"It can reach out and get you 24-7. I think that's really hard for youth," says Vickie Henry, senior staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. "We've had situations with youth spending a lot of time online trying to respond to these attacks."
The same Iowa study found that gay bullying victims were less likely to go to an adult for help, especially if their parents were inclined to restrict Internet access or take away their cellphones.
In an attempt to stop anti-gay harassment, Facebook has stepped up its reporting options and formed a coalition with groups like the Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Advocates have fought in and out of court with districts that claim to be absolved of responsibility for student behavior off school grounds.
Tyler Clementi's parents say that if their son's complaint had been taken seriously by his dorm's resident assistant, their son might still be alive today.
"Maybe if his RA had reported it as a crime right away, if some adults had gotten involved, the police could have assisted Tyler," Jane Clementi says. "We didn't know about it until it was too late."
They hope Tyler's story will open parents' eyes before it's too late.
"We realized that losing a child is probably the worst experience a parent can have," says Tyler's father, Joseph. "We started the foundation to remember Tyler and try to keep other parents from going through this kind of suffering that we went through."
Yet social media has also been an invaluable tool for the anti-bullying movement. After Dan Savage posted the first It Gets Better video, he received 200 submissions in one week. Now, the campaign counts 50,000 contributions — everyone from Adam Lambert to the L.A. Dodgers has participated.
"I just spoke at a high school journalism conference in Seattle," Savage says. "There were thousands of high school journalists, and half a dozen kids approached me and burst into tears because of the difference It Gets Better has made in their lives."
When schools tell students they can't have a same-sex prom date or wear a "Jesus Is Not a Homophobe" T-shirt, advocacy firms like the ACLU, Lambda Legal and GLAAD come to their aid. They now also have a powerful ally in the White House.
"Once Obama took office, people started really running," says Deborah Temkin, the Department of Education's research and policy coordinator for Bullying Prevention Initiatives. "We are engaged with nine other federal agencies, and I believe at last count it was 32 offices within those nine agencies all working on this issue, which is unprecedented. We came together without a congressional mandate."
Despite howls of outrage from Republicans, GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings was appointed to the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools in 2009. The Matthew Shepard Act became law, making assault based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently sent what's known colloquially as a "Dear Colleague" letter to every school in the country, declaring that this administration would consider discrimination against LGBT students a potential violation of Title IX.
"We're seeing a much more active role by this administration," says Alison Gill, public policy manager at GLSEN. "It's started to create this tipping point."
Two days after the "Dear Colleague" letter, the Department of Justice received a complaint from Wendy Walsh. She wrote that her son was harassed from the day he came out in sixth grade until the day he hanged himself. Federal investigators took the case.
"Despite having notice of the harassment, the district did not adequately investigate or otherwise respond to it," the Office of Civil Rights concluded. "Based on the evidence gathered in the investigation, the departments concluded that the school district violated Title IX and Title IV."
New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Corey Stoughton reports that the Department of Justice was eager to help when she sued on behalf of Jacob Lasher, a gay student in the Mohawk school district of upstate New York, who dropped out over violent threats from other students and harassment by teachers.
"They called us. They told us they'd been looking for a case to establish this Department of Justice's approach," she says of the DOJ. "The Bush administration never would have done this."
But no school district received as much national attention as Anoka-Hennepin in Minnesota. The district experienced nine student suicides in two years, many of them directly related to LGBT bullying. A district policy mandating that teachers remain "neutral" on topics of sexual orientation left the adults standing on the sidelines.
Six student plaintiffs told of being stabbed with pencils and urinated on in restrooms. The media frenzy culminated with a Rolling Stone article that caught the attention of celebrities including Aziz Ansari and Howard Stern.
"It was the first time anyone had taken any interest in what was actually going on," says Rebecca Rooker, whose son Kyle used to plead to come home from his Anoka-Hennepin school. "We got basically everything we asked for."
Years of denial finally ended when the district tossed out its "no homo promo" policy and agreed to five years of DOJ monitoring, as well as a raft of anti-harassment precautions.
The future looks: a) 3 seashell b) Taco Bell as the sole franchise. c) Gay bullying not gay people. IMHO, the current society is encouraging to weak the people. When i was a kid, i was kicked in school but also i kicked some guys, and everybody considered it as normal. Now, if a kid is kicked or kick then it is illegal, lawyers are put in motion, the kid receive mental help (including countless of therapy and drugs) and so on... sheesh guys. It is the land of hipocrisy.
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So you know for sure what was on Tyler Clementi's mind when he jumped off the bridge --- just like the psychic jurors. Let's reverse the situation of the "victim" and see if all the media hype would be there about this case. In fact, there would be no case. If there is anything I learned from this is how unevenly the laws are applied depending on the race & ethnicity of people.
Make no mistake about who Romney is- anyone who assaulted and bullied a gay student in high school is a person of irrefutable bad character. We all know basic character is in place by high school. His "tolerance" is ambition. Put rich, privileged, homophobic and socially backward in a person and you get Romney.
Make no mistake about Romney's disdain for gays. We all know basic character is apparent by high school. This guy is an intolerant ambitious homophobe.
James, if gay-bashing is called 'tough love' nowadays, I think tough-love of the 70's has run its course. There is nothing right about any bashing at all. Not toward anyone for any reason.
Christian churches exist to teach people about Jesus and how he lived, guiding the congregation to live likewise. Ministers, just as all humans, are not perfect,..we have all sinned, meaning 'missing the mark.' Ministers, as such, are vested by the Church to be guiding members to be followers of Jesus Christ, who taught the message of Love.... of kindness, honesty, helping others, giving, not taking. Remember 'WWJD'? Jesus did not teach stoning..."Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Ministers, just as all humans, are not perfect,..we have all sinned, meaning 'missing the mark.' If a minister is teaching mockery, hate, punishment, to steal., lie, curse, kill,....and encouraging you to teach your children likewise, then the minister has lost the way and needs help. CHRISTIANS, STAND UP FOR JESUS' TEACHINGS!
"Gay-bullying" has been encouraged by churches for decades. They see it as "tough-love". The idea is that if you give someone enough trouble over their sexual orientation, they will give up their homosexuality hobby. It has never worked.
Very good article with well-researched facts. The only improvement might be to have included that Matthew Shepard was beaten and left hanging on barbwire to die. (If someone did not know what had happened--this is an important detail.) Thank you for writing an outstanding account of the very real problem of our youth killing themselves because of harassment--just for being themselves. It IS a Civil Right matter.
The Tyler Clementi story reveals how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. There was no evidence that Ravi disliked Clementi or that he had anti-Gay bias. People do not care what kind of person Ravi is because they project on to Ravi the type person they want him to be. For them, Ravi has to be a nasty person who hates others. There was no evidence of that. This myth about the evil Ravi is harmful to the Gay community.
Being exposed brought so much shame upon Clementi and his anger and hostility turned inward and like many Gay teens, he killed himself. Ravi did not harrass Clementi into suicide. Our society, especially our Churches, are the real culprits. We have vile people like the Santorumites actively spreading anti-bigotry, telling Gays they are inherently evil and they should kill themselves. Santorumites are elevated to the highest status in our society. Romney, as we learned, is a Santorumite also. Yet, he still runs for President. If it turned out that Mitty were Gay, that would end his candidacy.
Our culture of shame is what drove Clementi to suicide. If he had been a freshman who was nailing the senior cheerleader, he would have been Big Man on Campus. Our culture reflects us and we do not want to admit our role in Clementi's death. Take the MATTer into your hands and see if you have BEN there yourself -- what about the famous Gays who stay in the closet. What responsibility do they owe?
Just as the Santorumites persecute Gays, too many others are persecuting Ravi -- If Ravi had grown up in Bible Belt America, then I would say he knew or should have known that the video would harm Clementi. But as I understand the situation, Ravi is from India. It may never have occurred to Ravi what a vicious society we have in America.
The Gay Community should change its approach and start outing people -- it is literally life and death.
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