Yngve Raustein

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Yngve Koehler Raustein (October 17, 1970-September 18, 1992) was an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a resident of Baker House. On the evening of September 18, 1992, he was walking down the sidewalk of Memorial Drive by Hayden Library when he and his companion were attacked by three youths, students of Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, also in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Shon McHugh, age 15, Joseph D. Donovan, age 17, and Alfredo Velez, age 18. The youths robbed Raustein and his companion of $33, and one of them stabbed Raustein, who was fatally injured. A memorial service for Raustein was held on October 9, 1992.

Raustein's murder was the first of an MIT student for over a decade and sparked a Town and gown debate centering on the tension between the wealthy universities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that is, MIT and Harvard University, and the much poorer permanent Cambridge population, represented by Raustein's attackers. A vigil held the week after his death drew representatives from both communities [1]. The situation was extremely delicate since Raustein had gained some degree of notoriety on campus by posting racially inappropriate jokes to a public Internet forum some months before his death, at a time when awareness of the existence of the Internet was just beginning even in the academic world. Raustein had posted the jokes in question to a European Usenet forum and had quickly retracted his statements and apologized for them. However, Jonathan Richmond, a 1991 MIT alumnus known for having precipitated the 1988 bans of the Usenet group rec.humor.funny at the University of Waterloo and Stanford University [2][3], became aware of Raustein's postings and campaigned to have the issue brought up with the MIT administration, which informally censured Raustein over the matter [4] [5].

A permanent memorial award, the Yngve Raustein Award for scholarship, teamwork and community, was established at MIT in 1993 in honor of Raustein and has been awarded since.

Raustein has been memorialized in the Garden of Peace memorial in Boston, Massachusetts [6].