Emma Sulkowicz is a senior at Columbia University. She is carrying a mattress on her back to protest the lack of disciplinary action against the student she accused of raping her.
Sulkowicz has spoken out against the university’s sexual assault policies and she filed a police report against her alleged rapist. For her visual arts senior thesis, she chose a performance art piece titled “Mattress Performance” or “Carry That Weight.” She told the Columbia Daily Spectator, “I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there everywhere since then.”
Sulkowicz intends to carry the mattress around wherever she goes as long as her alleged rapist attends the university.
“The thing about beds is, we keep them in our bedroom, which is this intimate space, our private space, where we can retreat if we don’t want to deal with anyone at that moment. The past year or so of my life has been marked with telling people what happened in that most intimate, private space and bringing it out into the light.”
New York Magazine reported that Sulkowicz is one of 23 students who filed a federal Title XI lawsuit this past April accusing school officials of pressuring them not to report attacks against them. The suit also argues that disciplinary hearings related to rape cases are conducted by personnel lacking the proper training on the issue.
One month after joining the federal lawsuit, Sulkowicz filed a police report accusing a man identified as Jean-Paul Nungesser of raping her in August 2012.
The police report stated that after Sulkowicz and Nungesser had consensual sex in her dorm, Nungesser physically abused her and forced himself on her without her consent. Sulkowicz filed a complaint to the university after meeting two other women allegedly assaulted by Nungesser. He was found “not responsible” in April 2013. Sulkowicz recounted the hearing in a column for Time Magazine this past May.
“I appealed, but appeals go to the dean who basically has the autonomy to make the final decision for every case of sexual assault on campus,” she wrote. “That’s not right. They either must find a disinterested party or they should train him because he hasn’t been trained to know to deal with survivors.”
Watch Sulkowicz’s interview with the Columbia Daily Spectator:
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Kimberley A. Johnson (BIO) is the author of AMERICAN WOMAN The Poll Dance: Women and Voting & The Virgin Diaries and an activist for women’s rights. Like her on Facebook, Twitter or follow her on FB HERE. |
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