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.
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.
You have no idea the conversations you’re actually having in here then.
I have an idea about the Wikipedia page I read. That is what I replied to. I also have an opinion about due process, which I am very well aware of.
You tried to pull some other case into it that I wasn’t even talking about and now you try to accuse me of having no idea about the entire discussion before that?
Are you deliberately trying to make yourself look like a fool? You really couldn’t do a better job if you tried.
Says the person who stalked me to push that I’m a MAGA psyop. I don’t attach any weight to any of your opinions.
Stalked? Where? Please enlighten me with your definition of stalking. You’re leaving multiple comments to my one that wasn’t even a reply to you.
Don’t tell me you actually bought that, Velma? That would be hilarious.
lol stating what you did doesn’t mean I believed you.