Columbia University senior Emma Sulkowicz, 21, says she was raped in her own bed at the beginning of her sophomore year. This week, two years after the alleged assault, Sulkowicz, a visual-arts major, has made a promise to carry her mattress around campus every day as part of her senior thesis. It is, she says, a symbol of the burden sexual-assault survivors carry with them every day.
“The act of carrying the mattress from inside my room out into the light has mirrored the way my life has changed, as I’ve brought my personal story out into the light,” Sulkowicz told TIME. “This project is a way to heal one of the most difficult things that happened to me. As I will build muscle and get stronger, hopefully I will also build emotional strength.”
Sulkowicz started the performance-art project on Tuesday, and she said she is determined to continue carrying the mattress wherever she goes — to class, the library, the gym — as long as her alleged rapist is still on campus. That means her project could last until graduation day in May 2015 — unless her alleged assailant is either expelled or chooses to leave the school. Last year, Sulkowicz and two other women reported the same person to the university. All three cases were dismissed.
As the linked article didn’t include any photos of what was being discussed…
I appreciate the friend behind her helping her carry it. Solidarity.
Good for her
This is completely unacceptable. The fact that multiple women reported the same guy is a huge red flag
The story’s lead image, of the person that famously always carried the mattress… is of her not holding a mattress?
Did we do a journalism, Dad?
What an absolute shit university Columbia has become.
It does reflect the US though
In January 2015, New York’s U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand invited Sulkowicz to attend the 2015 State of the Union Address.[5] Families Advocating for Campus Equality said the invitation was “undeserved and violates the principles of confidentiality and gender equality of Title IX”,
Wow, TIL about this asshole NGO that defends rapists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Families_Advocating_for_Campus_Equality
“Families Advocating” oh yeah, definitely a racist/sexist/bigoted organization. They’re not all named like this, but those that are, are very likely very shitty.
Well after reading the wiki, I wouldn’t call it that:
Specifically, FACE objects to many schools’ Title IX proceedings that deny students basic procedures traditionally provided to those defending themselves against allegations of wrongdoing, such as: not being informed of the specific accusations, denied access to the complaint, witness statements, and evidence, and not being permitted to contact and present witnesses.
I think due process is one of the fundamental principles of our society, be for it murder, rape or petty theft.
This reminds me of a reddit post from a while ago. Dude is going to a university in the US. He’s randomly contacted by campus police to let him know that a student has taken out a restraining order on him. He’s a graduate student, and the student who took out the restraining order is from one of his classes that’s typically for undergrads. Other than sharing that class, he doesn’t know the student. Never even spoken to them. He’s on a student visa, if he’s expelled, he’ll likely be deported. He’s not allowed to speak to the student and campus police won’t even tell him why the restraining order is in place.
After doing some investigation on his own, he finds out the student is dating one of his roommates, who he also doesn’t know very well. The roommate is stalking the student, and another roommate is helping the stalker.
The student who took out the restraining order had seen him with the stalker at some point and, because the class they share is typically for undergrads, assumed he only took the class to keep an eye on the student for the stalker.
He was able to go to his graduate advisor about it and luckily it all got cleared up, the student withdrew the restraining order. But his whole academic career was nearly derailed because a random person was able to take out a restraining order on him with zero direct evidence, and there was no established means by which he could defend himself.
That’s why you shouldn’t let university staff do police work or become Dredd (judge, jury & executioner). Professionals have trained for years to get this stuff right but “campus police” thinks they can do it without any proper training or investigation.
“Campus Police” are regular police (for all that’s worth), not rent-a-cops. Their jurisdiction is University and University-related policing. Think of the University as being its own city.
I teach nights at a university and UPD is pretty great. The city cops are very much out to get people, whereas the UPD has a very light touch. They’ll bust a party with a bunch of 19yo Kids drinking too much and getting loud, and tell them to keep it down and stay safe, while offering to call a non-police volunteer to drive anyone home for free.
Parking Services (not part of UPD) can get go suck on a tailpipe though. Fuck those guys.
That’s good to hear. Maybe I shouldn’t have shat on the campus police but rather the campus staff making the decision to expel without going through the proper process.
They are given due process, including access to lawyers, evidence, and witnesses. They’re even allowed to take the case to court. All public universities are required to offer full due process when expelling students.
Private universities are not required to do so because they’re not run by the government.
An anonymous poster posts a story in Reddit…
They are given due process
That’s in contradiction to what the Wikipedia page shows.
Private universities are not required to do so
So many of them do not. Why does not being run by the government exempt schools from applying basic human rights?
So many of them do not. Why does not being run by the government exempt schools from applying basic human rights?
Your question is a little hyperbolic since what your talking about is title IX specifically, not “human rights” in general.
You can read about title IX exemptions here.
I’m not talking about human rights in general, I’m talking about those specific basic human rights.
How are they being denied basic human rights?
Title IX is very specific and the organization you refer to, FACE, specifically states their goal in relation to title IX.
I can’t tell if your arguing in bad faith or you don’t understand title IX compared to other laws that would apply.
I was talking about the organisation in the first comment, but then the discussion went to public and private universities in general, which I then replied to.
And the basic human right is the due process I mentioned before.
You don’t have to jump to accusations “bad faith” because you and I are misunderstanding one another. Let’s try to keep Lemmy normal and not spiral into a Reddit argument.
Due process protects you from the government. You don’t get due process when you get kicked out of a private business or university for misbehaving. They can kick you out for no reason at all.
If you misbehave, sure, but this is not misbehaving. This is a crime. One that hasn’t been proven to have happened at all.
They can kick you out for no reason at all.
That is a major issue. Kicking someone out of university is a life-changing punishment, and should not be taken so lightly when someone may be innocent. There should be rules about that and I don’t think this should be normalized.
Getting fired is life changing yet we accept that we could be fired at any time for no reason here in the US. Protections against getting arbitrarily kicked out of a private university would require legislation. Right now that’s a risk you assume when you go to a private institution versus a public one.
That is also a problem. But getting kicked out of university for supposed rape when you’re innocent is a life sentence. No decent job will ever hire you.
The fact that this shit happens all the time doesn’t mean you have to normalise it. It’s not normal.
Actually it’s a pre requisite for being a politician or clergy member.
Earns you a golden toilet even
But getting kicked out of university for supposed rape when you’re innocent is a life sentence.
What do you think having to drop out of University because of the trauma of being raped does to a person?
So two wrongs make a right? This person had their life horribly disrupted for reason A so an unrelated person should have their life horribly disrupted for reason B?
People should not be subject to arbitrary harm from others and we should be against all forms of it, whether that’s sexual assault, economic coercion or lack of due process.
Obviously being raped is worse. I’m not trying to start a competition or shouting match here.
My point is solely and entirely about the basic human right of due process: anyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty, no matter the gender or crime. That doesn’t mean don’t believe the accuser, but it means really take the charges seriously, investigate the crime to the best of your system’s abilities and if after all that there is insufficient evidence, there should be no conviction. Not by the justice system or the university. If he is guilty, as with any other crime, the system has failed. But until there is some major breakthrough, this is the best system we have.
As a more general point: the US is already falling into a society of lawlessness. Now you don’t have to go all Michelle Obama “When they go low, we go high” but at least don’t play their hand by inciting more lawlessness. I really don’t think you will win that war…
Then maybe Cornell shouldn’t have impeded a real investigation here.
I don’t see a Cornell in this story. Do you mean the university? (I honestly don’t know, not from the US)
If that’s the case: absolutely, the university should not have a say in what is a matter of the law.
Cornell is currently in the news for covering up a gang rape two years ago. It’s come out they withheld evidence from the DA and the police and DA never investigated properly.
Columbia has similar skeletons in their closet.
I didn’t know about that, but I don’t know why it has any relevance to my comment: I’m advocating for due process and you pose an obstruction of that very due process as somehow contradictory to my statement.
The president of Columbia at the time refused to shake her hand when she crossed the stage at graduation.
Good. She’s better than him and he doesn’t deserve to shake her hand. Fuck him.
Moar like she should have refused to shake the hand of the rapist enabling president
I’m sure Socrates and Plato turning over in their graves looking at MBAs running educational institutions.
Probably should have picked two philosophers who didn’t have significant portions of their works dedicated to defending slavery and the literal Greek patriarchy.
he was clearly picked due to the idea of the philosopher king (in Plato’s famously undemocratic Kaliopolis, which is a lot like the caste system)
Slavery then was very different from the horrors that are chattel slavery. From my reading Socrates and Plato both reject the Greek patriarchy, but if you have writings of Plato’s that shows otherwise I’d love to see them.
You’re a trash person who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and even if you were right, you’d still be a garbage heap for thinking “but it wasn’t about race” or “but their children wouldn’t always be slaves as well, unless of course they fell into debt while their slave parents died in the mines” is a defense.
Just straight up LMAO at them not defending Greek patriarchy btw.
Shit, you ignorant fucking ape, they had chattel slavery too, and what the Spartans did to their helot class was as bad or worse than anything the South did.
Homie’s off his meds again lmao.
Woah buddy everything is alright man. Take a chill pill.
You triggered them, sure.
You’re gonna address the point they made though? How they had chattel slaves AND the alternative ancient slave systems you defended are literally worse?
No, they were right and I was wrong. Socrates and Plato had ideas different that typical Greek life, but they were still far from ideal by today’s standards. It is something that I had to do more research on and I’m grateful for that.
That guy is a real fuck though, and can eat a whole cactus.
How about you know one goddamn thing about ancient slavery systems before you defend it based on shit you’ve seen fascist adjacent redditors who unironically want to bring those systems back say and then I’ll chill?
Did she carry the mattress on stage?
Yes. He hadn’t been expelled at that point.
So, not sure how a handshake could have been possible.
Fucking immense face palm.
Carrying it around everywhere doesn’t mean she didn’t regularly put it down to do other things.
Someone that cared about the issue would have made an effort to figure something out. Then again someone who cared about the issue would do more to remove rapists from the campus they are in charge of.
one can have two hands at once
All she had to do was trick him into saying ‘Free Palestine’ and Columbia not only would have expelled him but they would also ensure he never got a job in any top firm
Is this the case in the US? It’s basically the opposite in sweden.
God, the internet was fucking horrible when this happened. I remember constant comments about how she was lying for attention or just regretted it. Pre-MeToo era was a hellhole.
I think a lot of people just don’t have any experience with the criminal justice system and assume that if there was no conviction he must be innocent.
The evidence that came out was more so what was damning.
Based on what I read, the corollary is also true. Just because somebody did time doesn’t mean they did the crime. Cops use all kinds of bullshit tricks to get convictions. It seems like every week it turns out shaken baby syndrome isn’t real, or excited delirium, or voice stress analysis. Shit, I read that barrel signatures aren’t even real. I’m not sure about that one, only having seen it one place, but I’m willing to believe it’s been a con all along that it’s possible to match a fired bullet to the gun that shot it. They cheat that badly.
In the US, at least, the criminal justice system seems to care only about clearing cases, not solving crime. Taking the profit motive away might clean some of this up.
A ton of ‘forensics’ is just charlatans selling snake oil.
Still does nothing to change how rape victims are either refused help, are re-victimized by the system, criminalized themselves or in most cases, simply ignored by a system that is ostensibly supposed to help them.
Cops don’t give a fuck. Prosecutors don’t give a fuck. Not unless they’re made to, but even then they do a shit job and even when it goes to trial, existing laws more often than not fall well short of exacting justice. Meanwhile victims have to relive this shit every single day for the entire multi year process of watching their rapist get away with it.
The system is built to protect rapists and it will continue to do so.
To add injury to injury, one piece of forensics that actually does work is DNA testing, and yet it’s hardly ever done. Texas was having to exonerate so many convicted rapists they simply burned all the untested rape kits. Bush2 did that when he was governor.
Oh don’t worry, the internet is continuing to be horrible about this and the Cornell rape. It never really went away unfortunately and we’re in the middle of a huge misogyny resurgence.
Absolutely the shitheads are still here and being loud, but to me the overall culture has shifted enough that they’re at least recognized as shitheads and not just treated as a normal opinion that some men have. I’m sure that’s not the case everywhere, but that’s been how it’s shifted in the past 10-15 years where I’ve seen.
Yeah where I am in the US, we literally elected a rapist as president. The misogyny hasn’t really shifted much from my perspective after Me Too. Like…there’s more lip service paid to it, but like with the Cornell situation, there’s still no real consequences for most rapists and younger generations are demonstrably more misogynistic.
I get where you’re coming from and you’re probably right that some of the general sentiments have shifted enough that we can talk about these things more openly, but overall not much has changed.
younger generations are demonstrably more misogynistic.
I just really have to disagree here. Growing up in the 90s, blatant misogyny was utterly pervasive throughout our culture. Now raising a son, sometimes 90s (or earlier) media comes on and the sexist tropes make me cringe.
While the internet has enabled a loud subgroup of misogynists to organize, the culture among young people in the real world that I observe daily is waaay more accepting and progressive than the predominant culture 30 years ago.
I’ll pull some studies in a minute here, but when I say demonstrably, I mean it. There’s a reason that Gen Z helped elect Trump.
Women’s rights are regressing worldwide, warns UN gender equality chief
The report titled Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls, shows how laws are being reshaped to restrict women’s freedoms, silence their voices, and allow abuse without consequence.
Together, these barriers mean that women worldwide have 64 per cent of the legal rights of men whilst 54 per cent of countries lack consent based legal definitions of rape.
“Nearly 90 per cent of organizations working to end violence against women and girls are reporting reduction in essential services, only 5 per cent believe they can sustain the current situation they are in and sustain for over two years.”
That’s right. According to a report published by UN Women in September 2022, it could take close to 300 years to achieve full gender equality at the current rate of progress (read: too slow).
The global pandemic, conflict, the climate crisis, and a harsh backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are further diminishing the outlook for gender equality. Violence against women remains high; global health, climate, and humanitarian crises have further increased risks of violence, especially for the most vulnerable women and girls; and women feel more unsafe than they did before the pandemic.
In countries as diverse as Afghanistan and the US, women and girls now have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers did.
Though vastly different, extremist movements, such as far-right ethno-nationalists, religious fundamentalists and online “incel” communities, have something in common. The ideological language may differ, but the underlying insistence on women’s “rightful place” in society binds these movements together.
Around the world, there is a growing sentiment that “feminism has gone too far” or that men are now discriminated against. In Australia and other Western countries, this sentiment has risen steadily since 2021.
Support for violence to resist feminism was highest among adolescent boys (28%), followed closely by adolescent girls (21%).
Perhaps most alarming: roughly 40% of boys aged 13 to 17 agreed that women lie about domestic and sexual violence.
Even in 2020, a large percentage of Americans continue to agree with statements designed to capture both hostile and benevolent sexism. Exposure to higher education appears to tamper, to some degree, hostile sexist viewpoints, but plays only a modest role in reducing benevolent sexism. Given the significance of hostile sexism in predicting support for Donald Trump and Republican candidates in recent elections, it is instructive to consider how American adults are divided largely along the lines of sex and education when it comes to their adherence to hostile sexism. This suggests that if sexism continues to play a major role in future elections, the gender and education gap between Republicans and Democrats will continue to grow even larger.
That era was the beginning of my disillusionment with the internet. It’s like every guy was angry for the rapist. Are they afraid for themselves… What are they hiding?
The internet was not to blame, though, it’s just a reflection of your society…
I only heard about it when she put out a full nudity and penetration reinacment video. The reactions to that were certainly interesting.
Link?
Edit: found it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceci_N’est_Pas_Un_Viol
And here’s the original work from way back machine https://web.archive.org/web/20150611064710/http://www.cecinestpasunviol.com/
Update: the text has ample trigger warnings, but I’ll add that (while I think it’s bold and well done), it’s very hard to watch and may give you nightmares
Was? It’s only gotten worse.
I’d say different rather than worse. The normal person:misogynist shithead ratio of people online is higher than it’s ever been, which means there are a lot more people are calling it out instead of it just being flung everywhere like feces.
I hope you’re right!
Yeah, now the majority of rape jokes are made by bots instead of humans.
Garbage in, garbage out
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
It wasn’t the mattress that she was raped on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight)
It was the same model, though.
Purchased online from Tall Paul’s Tall Mall, the 50-lb (23-kg), dark-blue, extra-long twin mattress is of the kind Columbia places in its dorms, similar to the one on which Sulkowicz said that Nungesser had raped her
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In case you’re looking for more like this
Artnet cited it as “almost certainly … one of the most important artworks of the year”, comparing it to Ana Mendieta’s Untitled (Rape Scene) (1973) and Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus’s Three Weeks in May (1977).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight)
This article is from 2014
Yes it is. We’re in the TIL community.
I’m not judging, just thought it was useful information to add.
Turns out nothing much has changed when it comes to treating rape like the serious crime that it is.
I don’t think that is entirely true. The metoo movement has caused a lot of public awareness and outcry, which is still effective today. Even now, more women speak about their experience, which keeps the conversation going and keeps opening people’s eyes. Because it is easier (in a public sense) to talk about rape, ther is less judgement and more support.
There is now a culture around consent and how important that is. There is now also attention for power inbalace, like a boss and a employee. This even lead to a massive jiurnalist investigation in 2022 in my country (netherlands), where a few key figures in “The Voice Holland” were exposed as rapists. Two were taken to court, one got convicted.
I’m a simple white man, but from what I hear and see, there are a few things better than it was in 2014.
My country has also adopted a law in 2024 that broadens the spectrum of what can be classified as rape. Now you don’t have to prove force or violence, but things like coercion or online behaviour also counts as evidence. It is also easier to press charges.
There is still plenty of problems surrounding the treatment of rape a a serious crime, but I think it is better than in 2014. What is still definitely a problem, is that that the law requires hard evidence and rape is hard to prove with hard evidence. In that case it will always be your word against their’s. That has still not been solved, and is the reason why many rape cases don’t make it to court (because they don’t have the evidence and there no chance). But this is actually a hard problem to solve.
This post was probably in response to the recent Cornell 7 situation.
A former Cornell student was drugged and gang-raped in a frat house for 7 hours in 2024. When she reported it, two of the rapists were expelled, and five more had to write an essay about why rape is bad. No criminal charges were brought against any of them, even the two who were expelled. Zero arrests. The entire frat house knew about it, and even the ones who refused to participate in the gang-rape chose to do nothing.
The case recently went viral because she is suing the seven men and the college. And now that it has gone viral, investigators have said they’re going to reopen the criminal investigation that they previously closed. But they’re only doing that because it quickly became apparent that the police intentionally refused to do anything about it, and now they have egg on their face.
And this isn’t just a he-said-she-said situation where there is some ambiguity about whether or not the attack happened. We have text messages from the frat members, telling each other about the free pussy in the bedroom, and to just walk in and whip it out. She had been repeatedly drugged with ketamine and liquor throughout the 7 hour long gang rape, and all 7 knew she was completely out of it and unable to consent. Those are direct quotes, by the way. This photo was entered as evidence in New York’s court:
Additionally, in 2025, Cornell reported that 35% of undergraduate women respondents said they had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact during their Cornell careers, compared with 23% in 2023. That is a staggering increase.
Things definitely haven’t gotten better.
Additionally, in 2025, Cornell reported that 35% of undergraduate women respondents said they had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact during their Cornell careers, compared with 23% in 2023. that is a staggering increase.
Ugh I hadn’t seen this stat yet. Abysmal. I feel so terrible for our young women in this country. It was supposed to be better, not worse.
You can read the DA statement and her testimony here. It has a full story of what happened from her pov, including the guys who showed up after the group text went out.
Update: apparently the DA is a lying POS: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/cornell-university-rape-case-district-attorney-campus-police-interview/
This is not her testimony, this is the DA recounting her testimony.
It is decidedly not the whole story as evidenced by the group chat that the DA never saw and that she’s suing Cornell accusing them of holding back evidence.
I’m in the US and we have such long backlogs of rape kits that are never even tested:
In 2022, at least 25,000 untested rape kits sat in law enforcement agencies and crime labs across the country. This figure only accounts for data reported by 30 states and Washington, DC; the total backlog number is unknown.
So when you say that the reason it’s difficult to solve rape cases is because there isn’t any evidence, I don’t believe that.
I think that our authorities don’t investigate rape hardly ever. 98% of perpetrators never seen the inside of a courtroom. Our president is a literal child rapist.
I’m glad that you’ve seen improvement in your country.
Yepppp, cops don’t investigate such things for shit and I just can’t believe they care after being part of the victim end of such an investigation
I’m so sorry your wife had to experience not only the original crime, but then the added victim blaming from the very people that are supposed to help her. It’s sadly way too common here.
There will come a time when even the US will be a good place to live. Until then, I wish you all the luck.
Your name is abbadon420! Since it seems we’re just stating things…
I missed when the story was originally published, so I appreciate their comment even if they could have explained their intent a little better
Thanks, I’ve saved your comment for future reference
It’s also turned out to not be true.
Wow, fuck that article.
We can debate why sexual misconduct and rape have become such pressing problems (spoiler alert: it has everything to do with the sexual revolution and hook-up culture)…
Also fuck the author for, among other things, that quote. Victim blaming bullshit.
Brother, of all the sources you could’ve shared, you went with the National Review? Are you joking?
I’m giving you a do-over to find something better. This is your mulligan.
Yeah linking a conservative opinion piece is iron-clad proof that Columbia took this rape allegation seriously. /s
Just got done reading the Wikipedia article on the matter. NYPD and the DA declined to pursue charges and the guy ended up suing Colombia for how they handled the proceedings on title IX gender discrimination violations. That lawsuit was settled.
WaPo is cited in there, it was bought by Bezos in '13.
The details of the settlement are sealed and it doesn’t prove that the rape didn’t happen, only that charges were never pressed against him for rape.
Considering the lengths that these Universities routinely go through to bury these stories, hide evidence, and not give evidence over to the DA and police departments, I have significant doubts that Columbia did the right thing here.
It is also impossible to prove rape didn’t happen. There’s no way you could conclusively prove right now that you haven’t raped me.
Which is why we have this whole innocent until proven guilty thing, which absolutely sucks if you’re a victim, but guilty until proven innocent is an even worse system.
Until either conclusive proof about the rape is presented or she admits to lying, as far as I’m concerned, he didn’t rape her and she isn’t lying about it.
I’m also not entirely sure it should be up to a university to investigate these things. That’s something the police should be doing and you Americans need to start lighting fires under their asses until they finally start taking rape cases seriously.
Given how quickly Columbia capitulated to Trump as well as its abysmal treatment of protestors it is almost certain the administration didn’t do the right thing.
Link contains evidence and other sources. You are free to ignore them if you want.
It’s the National Review
Two things can be “almost true”. Wiki
See the references for more reputable sources.
This dude is referring to the fact that the carrying of the mattress was, indeed, performance art. That said, she did this performance art because she had been assaulted and hadn’t received justice.
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If you don’t want a rapist on campus, do, then process, and make sure nobody finds the body.
What? I can’t quite make out what you’re saying here.
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Oh…
It would be cooler if authorities took rape allegations seriously.
It would be even cooler if men stopped doing rape.
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You turned out to be a real piece of shit.
It’s pointless to argue. These people will never believe a man over a woman.
Who says RamRabbit is a man?
Wikipedia article about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_rape_accusation_controversy
the charges were dropped after the court found her to be lying 🤷♀️ conveniently left that part out
No charges were ever filed against Paul Nungesser. Columbia University found him not responsible in their inquiry, NYPD declined to charge him, and the district attorney said there was no reasonable suspicion.
Nungesser did end up suing the school for a Title IX violation and they settled out of court.
Link?
she would have grounds to sue the school?
If she can prove the school violated the law or broke their own internal policy in handling this case, she may have grounds.
If they followed their own internal procedure properly and didn’t violate the law, it would be harder to win a suit.
