A Columbia University student who claims the school didn't do enough after being raped by a fellow student carried her mattress across the stage during her graduation ceremony.
With the help of friends, Emma Sulkowicz carried the 50 pound mattress as she accepted her diploma. The German student she says raped her, Paul Nungesser, was also at the cermony. He was cleared of wrongdoing after the district attorney's office found there was a 'lack of reasonable suspicion,' according to the Daily Mail. He is now suing the university for failing to protect him from harassment and backlash.
Sulkowicz claims Nungesser is a 'serial rapist' who also assaulted two other women. She says Nungesser choked, slapped and raped her in her dorm room in August 2012.
'I was raped in my own dorm bed and since then, that space has become fraught for me. I feel like I've carried the weight of what happened there since then,' Sulkowicz tells the Columbia Spectator.
The visual arts major carried the mattress around as part of her senior project called 'Carry the Weight' which represented her protest against Columbia University's alleged tolerance of rape and sexual assault. Large objects were banned from the graduation ceremony but it was not enforced, allowing Sulkowicz to carry her mattress. She appeared to refuse to shake the hand of President Lee Bollinger as she accepted her diploma, according to Columbia Spectator's Teo Armus.
The lawsuit filed by Nungesser against Columbia staes that the 'University's effective sponsorship of the gender-based harassment and defamation of Paul resulted in an intimidating, hostile, demeaning ... learning and living environment.'
Sulkowicz thinks his lawsuit is ridiculous."
"It's ridiculous that he would read it as a `bullying strategy,' especially given his continued public attempts to smear my reputation, when really it's just an artistic expression of the personal trauma I've experienced at Columbia."
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