A Columbia student who is shlepping a dorm mattress everywhere she goes on campus to protest the university’s lack of action against a student she says raped her is putting the stunt to good use.
Senior Emma Sulkowicz said her bid to raise awareness and put pressure on the university will be her senior thesis.
“I was raped in my own dorm bed, and since then that space has become fraught for me,” Sulkowicz, 21, said in a video. “I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there with me everywhere since then.”
Sulkowicz and at least two other students have accused a fellow senior of sexual assault, but the university found him “not responsible” in all the cases.
Frustrated over the outcome, she filed a report with the NYPD, and is one of 23 students involved in a federal complaint against Columbia for allegedly failing to protect them.
Sulkowicz said the third session got out of hand when he got rough with her, slapping her and pinning her down when she told him repeatedly to stop.
Sulkowicz said she will cart her twin-sized mattress to class, the library and anywhere else on campus until her alleged attacker is either suspended or expelled.
“A mattress is the perfect size for me to just be able to carry it, enough that I can continue with my day but also heavy enough that I have to continually struggle with it,” she told the Columbia Spectator. “The piece could potentially take a day or go on until I graduate.”
Columbia declined to comment on Sulkowicz’s project or complaint.