Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old gay
Rutgers University student who was bullied to death, was remembered
at several university events over the weekend, the Star-Ledger
reported.
Clementi's body was fished out of the
Hudson River on Thursday. The freshman jumped off the George
Washington Bridge and to his death nearly two weeks ago after
learning that his roommate had secretly streamed live video of him
having sex with another man onto the Internet. Dharun Ravi and
another freshman, Molly Wei, have been charged with invading
Clementi's privacy.
Nearly 1,000 mourners attended a silent
vigil in memory of Clementi at the university's main campus on
Sunday. “Tonight begins the process of healing,” Jenny Kurtz,
acting director of the university's lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender groups, told the crowd at the start of the vigil.
“Everyone needs a safe environment in
which to live together,” Barry Klassel, humanist chaplain at
Rutgers, told mourners after the 30-minute vigil. “Everything that
happens is an opportunity to grow and understand, an opportunity to
change the attitudes we might have.”
On Friday, a protest in support of gay
rights took place at Rutgers. And a moment of silence was held
before the start of Saturday's football game.
Clementi's death is the latest in a
string of recent incidents in which young teens took their own lives
after being bullied because they were gay.