Tyler Clementi was your normal college student. He played in the front row of the second violins in the Ridgewood, N.J., Symphony Orchestra. He had just started his freshman year at Rutgers University.

He was hardly out of line when he asked Dharun Ravi for the privacy of their dorm room on Sept. 19. Ravi however, made the decision to use the computer of Molly Wei to spy on his roommate, tweeting, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

Two days later, upon receiving the same request, Ravi dared, “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it’s happening again.”

The George Washington Bridge between Fort Lee, N.J., and Manhattan, N.Y., is one hour from Rutgers University, and looms 212 feet above the Hudson River.

At 8:42 a.m. on Sept. 22, Clementi posted his final words on his Facebook page: “jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” And he did.

On the Facebook Memorial Page for Clementi, friend Courtney Ayukawa posted, “I will always remember everything from our preschool’s Halloween party to your amazing musical talents. When you picked up the violin and began to play, it was as if everything just paused until you put it down again.”

People are outraged, and rightly so. The tragedy of Clementi’s death has sparked discussion on everything from gay rights to cyber-bullying.

Ellen DeGeneres offered a particularly sincere video message stating, “There are messages everywhere that validate this kind of bullying and taunting, and we have to make it stop. We can’t let intolerance and ignorance take another kid’s life.”

Openly gay and internationally renowned columnist Dan Savage has started a YouTube channel “It Gets Better” asking for user-submitted videos encouraging support for closeted gay youth, remarking, “Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids … But gay adults aren’t allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don’t bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied.”

We can’t begin to fathom what was going through Clementi’s head on Sept. 22, or the purpose of Ravi’s actions.

What we can say is this: Tyler Clementi did not have to end his life — not because his privacy was invaded, and most certainly not because of his sexual orientation.

We carry cell phones that give us turn-by-turn directions. We watch television over phone lines, drive electric cars, yet we still live in a day and age where a young man will kill himself out of shame for who he is.

On one hand, bullying is an inevitable, ugly facet of society, but where is the line drawn? Ravi and Wei each face a decade in jail, and the world lost Tyler Clementi. For what?

We admire the poise and tact of Jane and Joe Clementi. We leave you with their words:

“Regardless of legal outcomes, our hope is that our family’s personal tragedy will serve as a call for compassion, empathy and human dignity.”