The parents of a Rutgers University freshman,who committed suicide after his Indian- American roommate and another student allegedly broadcast online his sexual encounter with a man,have notified the school that they may sue it. Tyler Clementi,18,jumped off the George Washington Bridge on September 22. His roommate Dharun Ravi and another student Molly Wei have been charged with criminal counts of invading his privacy. Prosecutors say Ravi sent a Twitter message urging followers to watch. Tylers parents,Joseph and Jane Clementi,filed legal notices with the university on Friday,New York Times quoted Paul Mainardi,a lawyer for the family as saying. Tylers parents say the school should have done more to prevent the death of their son. By law,they must wait for six months to file a lawsuit,but they had to give notice within 90 days after the death to preserve their right to sue. Tyler had been on the Rutgers campus in New Jersey for less than a month,prosecutors say,when his roommate,Ravi,18,used a camera in his computer to live-stream the dormitory-room encounter between Tyler and another man. Ravi and Wei have since withdrawn from the university and their lawyers have said that they denied the accusations. The Tyler Clementi case has become a national flash point in the debates over gay rights,bullying and personal privacy in the Internet age. Subject to further investigation,it appears that Rutgers University failed to act,failed to put in place and/or failed to implement and enforce policies and practices that would have prevented or deterred such acts,and that Rutgers failed to act timely and appropriately, CNN quoted the legal notice as saying. Rutgers university responded to the notice with a statement saying that while it shares the familys sense of loss of their son,who was a member of our community, it also recognises that a grieving family may question whether someone or some institution could somehow have responsibility for their sons death. The university is not responsible for his suicide,it Said.
