Me writing about respect is probably ironic!

I am definitely not one of those people who refrains from gossip entirely, or even at all.  I will basically always partake because most of the time, it's not going to hurt anyone and I only tell people who are about as likely to pass it on as say, wallpaper.  So, Laura.  Or complete strangers.  Or I just politely listen.  Or I just tell people about the tragedies of my own life so that they can gossip about me because if I were to find out that people are wasting their lives talking about me well, I'd probably be flattered before I took any offense to it.  I'm not telling you to go out and make shit up about me or to go out looking for dirt on me, but you probably won't find anything that's so embarrassing I would refrain from telling you myself.

But it is straight up despicable to talk about a person in a large group setting because
1.  It's not private.  You don't necessarily know these people well enough to trust them to treat the information with a grain of salt.
2.  A lot of those people probably don't know who you're talking about very well, which then leads to them making snap judgments about him.  It keeps the two people from getting to know each other because someone thinks they know something negative and maybe even untrue about the other person.
3.  When it's in a group setting, like perhaps, a floor dinner of a dormitory, and the person you're talking about has to be in the group for say, almost an entire year, you are isolating him from everybody by saying such horrible things in front of everyone.  Let the guy be part of the group, let him have friends.
4.  He's keeping that information private because he wants it private.
5.  This is more specific but the beginning of college is a very very stressful time and you just don't know how well the person you're talking about is handling it.  Knowing people are talking about you behind your back does not do good things for your self esteem, and when such a large group is doing it, you're bound to figure it out.
6.  It's so fucking disrespectful.  Obviously.
7.  By leading such a conversation, I guarantee that at least one person out of the group is going to wonder who else you talk about behind their backs.  It doesn't reflect well on you.

There just aren't that many people in the world who are legitimately horrible enough to deserve being discussed and analyzed behind their backs.  There are plenty of people I don't like but very few who I would ever allow a full conversation to go on about between a group of 6 or more tearing down their character.  It's cruel.