The suicide of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi last September has led to a new push for anti-bullying programs and staff vigilance at schools in Mercer County, NJ and around the state, according to NJ.com.
Prosecutors have charged that Clementi ended his life after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, 19, of Plainsboro used a webcam to spy on Clementi’s intimate encounter with another man and then attempted to broadcast it for others to see.
Ravi and Molly Wei, who also attended Rutgers, allegedly watched the encounter on her laptop. Both Ravi and Wei are graduates of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North.
“It’s a situation that makes us look at everything we do around relationships and bullying in school and causes us to re-examine it,” said WW-P North principal Michael Zappichi. Presentations on diversity and bullying have been given to students and faculty in the past few months, he said.
Shayla Reed, a student at WW-P North who is president of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), said the group has hosted a series of voluntary discussions on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the past few weeks for students and staff.
She also hopes to have staff from HiTOPS, the Health-Interested Teens’ Own Program on Sexuality, present a homophobia-reduction workshop called Bridges to Respect to students at the high school in the fall.
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