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.
Turns out nothing much has changed when it comes to treating rape like the serious crime that it is.
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.
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.
You can read the DA statement and her testimony here. It has a full story of what happened from her pov, including the guys who showed up after the group text went out.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260929085033/https://www.tompkinscountyny.gov/News-articles/District-Attorney-statement-regarding-Jane-Doe-v.-Cornell-University-et-al
Update: apparently the DA is a lying POS: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/cornell-university-rape-case-district-attorney-campus-police-interview/
This is not her testimony, this is the DA recounting her testimony.
It is decidedly not the whole story as evidenced by the group chat that the DA never saw and that she’s suing Cornell accusing them of holding back evidence.
That’s true. It’s the DA paraphrase of her testimony. Her testimony will likely not become public prior to the trial. I never said it’s the full picture either, it clearly doesn’t include the group chats that happened on the other side of the door. It just shows what she says (or the DAs summary of it at least) happened on her side of the door.
I also don’t agree with the DA. That story has enough evidence of people pressuring her into doing more drugs and drinking more to get her into a more compromised state. That alone should have been enough for charges. You can’t just have someone say “stop” and respond with “do you want more drugs?”.
DA in Cornell University case says he never saw transcript of campus police interview with alleged rape victim
That’s some good fucking journalism right there. What a piece of shit DA blatantly lying about the transcript.
The transcript said "Jane Doe added, according to the transcript, “And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time. Physically hit very, very hard.”
But then the fucking DA’s “legal analysis” says:
The facts provided by Jane Doe’s statement do not allege that any person used physical force to compel Jane Doe to engage in sexual conduct.
I had suspected that the DA was as ass when they said “I have asked a senior prosecutor from my office to prepare the case for Grand Jury presentation”
Grand jury deliberations are secret and there is no legal requirement to provide any or all evidence to the grand jury. Neither the victim nor the accused get to present evidence or have lawyers review or present anything. They can also arbitrarily select the members from a random draw. This is probably one of those DA throwing the case and shrugging “we did our best” the grand jury wouldn’t indite.
I’ll amend my initial link to add this article.
Yeah, the grand jury thing is particularly damning.
For the unaware: The old joke among criminal defense lawyers is that a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich for murder if the District Attorney wants them to. The GJ is strictly an arm of the DA’s office, and a failure to indict basically always means the DA didn’t want to prosecute them. The DA has full control over what evidence the GJ gets to (or in this case, doesn’t get to) see.
The evidence they present doesn’t need to stand up to court scrutiny, because the GJ isn’t held to the same standards for evidence. The DA could basically scribble a “lol yeah I definitely did it -{Suspect}” note on a napkin and present it to the GJ as evidence of a confession. The fact that it won’t hold up in court doesn’t matter, because the GJ isn’t ruling on guilt. They’re just ruling on whether or not the DA has enough evidence to bother with a trial.
The DA can even withhold exculpatory evidence that would prove the suspect’s innocence, if they think the suspect can’t afford a good lawyer and they want to try and force the suspect into taking a plea deal. That is particularly common when they just need to close a particularly hot case, and they don’t really care who actually did the crime. They’ll basically frame some poor schmuck who has a good alibi, in the hopes that the person’s public defender talks them into taking a plea deal before it ever goes to trial.
“So why bother with all of this” I can already hear some of you typing… The answer is very simple: It’s because the DA is an elected position, and needs to consider their public image when deciding whether or not to prosecute a case. For example, let’s say a cop kills a dude in the street. It’s on camera from 20 different angles. The public is out for blood. And it’s election season, so the DA’s public image is under a spotlight right now. But the police union has privately told the DA that if they prosecute the cop for murder, CSI will stop collecting evidence at crime scenes, and officers will suddenly refuse to testify as witnesses in the DA’s trials. This puts the DA in a bit of a pickle. Do they hold to what their electors want (and risk letting future criminals walk free), just to prosecute the one cop? Or do they let the cop walk away, angering the public and likely losing their upcoming election?
Enter the Grand Jury. The GJ is a super convenient scapegoat. They’re a shadowy group of faceless individuals, with no public presence and no way to defend themselves or justify their decisions. Their only job is to do what the DA wants them to do. The DA doesn’t want to prosecute this cop, but also wants to win their election. So the DA does something supremely scummy: They tell the public that they’re bringing the case to the GJ… And then they don’t actually bring any evidence for the GJ. The GJ can only rule on the evidence that was presented, and since the DA has full control over the evidence, they can withhold everything. So the GJ naturally refuses to indict, because there is an overwhelming lack of evidence.
And now the DA can jump in front of the news cameras, and yell about “I tried so hard to prosecute this case, but the big mean GJ refused to indict and now my hands are tied. But remember, I tried to fight for what you wanted! I heard your cries for justice, and did everything I could to prosecute that big mean killer cop. Vote for me!”
Again, the GJ can’t refute that statement, because they’re not publicly known. The GJ can’t go “hey uhh you actually didn’t bring a single fucking shred of evidence.” They can’t go “we actually would have indicted if you had actually tried.” They can’t go “you’re a lying sack of shit who is using us as a scapegoat.” The DA gets control of the evidence, but they also get control of the narrative.
So any time you see a DA claiming to be building a case for the GJ and then the GJ fails to indict, remember that it was because the DA didn’t want to charge them.
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’m in the US and we have such long backlogs of rape kits that are never even tested:
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.
Yepppp, cops don’t investigate such things for shit and I just can’t believe they care after being part of the victim end of such an investigation
I’m so sorry your wife had to experience not only the original crime, but then the added victim blaming from the very people that are supposed to help her. It’s sadly way too common here.
There will come a time when even the US will be a good place to live. Until then, I wish you all the luck.