Link: https://time.com/3259455/columbia-student-pledges-to-carry-a-mattress-every-day-till-alleged-rapist-leaves-campus/

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.

The president of Columbia at the time refused to shake her hand when she crossed the stage at graduation.

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

This article is from 2014

Yes it is. We're in the TIL community.

It's also turned out to not be true.

I'm not judging, just thought it was useful information to add.

Your name is abbadon420! Since it seems we're just stating things...

Yeah linking a conservative opinion piece is iron-clad proof that Columbia took this rape allegation seriously. /s

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.

Link contains evidence and other sources. You are free to ignore them if you want.

It's the National Review

Turns out nothing much has changed when it comes to treating rape like the serious crime that it is.

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.

I missed when the story was originally published, so I appreciate their comment even if they could have explained their intent a little better

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.

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.

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.

You turned out to be a real piece of shit.

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.

Was? It's only gotten worse.

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.

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.

Good. She's better than him and he doesn't deserve to shake her hand. Fuck him.

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.

I hope you're right!

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.

I'm sure Socrates and Plato turning over in their graves looking at MBAs running educational institutions.

There will come a time when even the US will be a good place to live. Until then, I wish you all the luck.

Thanks, I've saved your comment for future reference

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.

Did she carry the mattress on stage?

Yes. He hadn't been expelled at that point.

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.

Probably should have picked two philosophers who didn't have significant portions of their works dedicated to defending slavery and the literal Greek patriarchy.

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.

I only heard about it when she put out a full nudity and penetration reinacment video. The reactions to that were certainly interesting.

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.

Woah buddy everything is alright man. Take a chill pill.

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?

It's pointless to argue. These people will never believe a man over a woman.

Who says RamRabbit is a man?

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?

Wikipedia article about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_rape_accusation_controversy

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?

Moar like she should have refused to shake the hand of the rapist enabling president

So, not sure how a handshake could have been possible.

Yeah, now the majority of rape jokes are made by bots instead of humans.

Garbage in, garbage out