A man publicly accused of raping a Columbia University student is suing the Ivy League university, its president and an art professor, alleging that the school enabled a harassment campaign by allowing his accuser to carry her mattress throughout the school as an art project.
The alleged victim, Emma Sulkowicz, became an icon of the movement to reform campus sexual assault proceedings after media outlets around the world covered her senior thesis and performance art piece, titled Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight). Sulkowicz committed to carrying her dorm room mattress around with her, throughout campus and classes, until her alleged rapist leaves campus.
The suit filed by the man she accused of raping her, Paul Nungesser, claims that Columbia University, by virtue of giving Sulkowicz course credit for the art project, was complicit in a harassment campaign designed to push him off campus after he was cleared of wrongdoing by the university’s disciplinary panel.
Nungesser was the “victim of harassment by another student, to devastating, long lasting results”, the suit filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court claims. The lawsuit names Columbia’s trustees, president Lee C Bollinger and art professor Jon Kessler as defendants.
Sulkowicz is not being sued by Nungesser.
Nungesser’s attorneys claim he was defamed and faced gender-based discrimination, and that Columbia was negligent and breached contracts.
Sulkowicz, who is continuing to carry her dorm room mattress, has said that Nungesser’s claims are “ridiculous”.
“I think it’s ridiculous that Paul would sue not only the school but one of my past professors for allowing me to make an art piece,” Sulkowicz said in an email to the Guardian.
“It’s ridiculous that he would read it as a ‘bullying strategy’, especially given his continued public attempts to smear my reputation, when really it’s just an artistic expression of the personal trauma I’ve experienced at Columbia. If artists are not allowed to make art that reflect on our experiences, then how are we to heal?”
Columbia University officials declined to comment, and Kessler could not be reached for comment.
A spokesperson for Nungesser’s attorney, Andrew T Miltenberg, said he was “inundated” by media requests, and could not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nungesser and Sulkowicz began a platonic friendship in their freshman year. The two had consensual sex twice before Sulkowicz claims Nungesser raped her. Before that time, the two exchanged friendly Facebook messages and love notes, according to Nungesser’s lawsuit.
Then, Sulkowicz claims, she was the victims of a horrific rape. The two were in her dorm room in August 2012 having consensual sex, when, she claims, Nungesser choked her, slapped her face and anally penetrated her as she screamed for him to stop.
In his lawsuit Nungesser claims the two had consensual sex that August, and exchanged friendly Facebook messages for days afterward. He claims that Sulkowicz only reported the alleged rape after becoming angry when he expressed interest in dating other women.
Sulkowicz reported her case to authorities on campus eight months later. They dismissed her claim after an investigation.
Two more women also filed complaints against Nungesser. His suit claims all three were dismissed.
Sulkowicz also filed a criminal complaint to the NYPD. The complaint was later dismissed. Nungesser’s lawsuit claims prosecutors dismissed it; Sulkowicz has claimed in media interviews that she asked for the complaint to be dismissed.
Both sides accuse the disciplinary board of operating with incomplete evidence.
Such a dispute illustrates the difficulty of evaluating the efficacy of confidential disciplinary board hearings at universities. Often, proceedings are only revealed after the fact, in public lawsuits between accused and accuser, or school and student. Even attorneys are often not permitted to attend the hearings.
Later, as Sulkowicz began Mattress Performance, she gained support through school-sponsored websites and centers.
Nungesser claims that Sulkowicz breached a confidentiality agreement regarding the disciplinary hearing multiple times and that she defamed him with a targeted campaign to push him off campus.
Sulkowicz herself said as much to the media: “Get my rapist off campus,” she told a school publication, about the purpose of her art piece.
