Because someone associated with the University is going to get that statement read back to them under oath in another case brought by a guy who is pissed about the school’s sexual assault/harrasment policy and be asked to explain, in great detail, what was meant and what has been done about it.
@cobrat Agree with you. Columbia isn’t a “left leaning” university. It’s remarkably mainstream. About the most heated it gets is during the annual Israel-Palestine protests, and even then only a small number of students are involved.
@Hanna I tend to be inherently suspicious of people who claim to know the numbers or inside story. If they did, they wouldn’t even allude to this fact.
As for Nungesser, the university’s statement might make him feel good but the truth is he will remain tarnished by this. The suspicion will always be there. I suspect he’ll find doors closed albeit he will never be told the reason why.
My God, Columbia, birthplace of the Weathermen and the infamous 1968 graduation protests is “center left”, “mainstream” or even “right leaning”? How quickly we forget.
But according to you they just issued an apology for their handling of a very contentious and public Title IX case.
Yes the comments I referred to by the attorney are publicly available. I read them with my morning coffee.
I agree that Columbia wanted the settlement alittle more. Nungesser is a John Jay scholar now in grad school with a feminist writer mother and mattress girl’s trajectory is…well… it’s not good press, none of this. I don’t think he/she the mo were going to “give up” until their lawyer advised them too and while the judge was “tough”, on each attempt Nungesser’s lawyer could sharpen the pencil and refine the case. While in some theoretical legal water cooler, Columbia might have come out on top – they did not “win” in the court of public opinion…and I think that is all Nungesser and his parents wanted…an apology for allowing mattress girl to harass their son. I honestly think if the university would have put a begin and end date on her “senior” project" like most “normal” senior projects and not let her drag the stupid mattress up on stage during commencement the Nungesser’s might, just might have just let her and her temper tantrum art expression go, but not taking it from her hands as she went on stage was the university saying to that family “we don’t care about you.” I would have been livid…absolutely livid if I were that mother and ready to take it the Supreme Court cost be damned. And if I were the parent, I would be perfectly at peace with the settlement, the public apology and whatever dollars came in to defray costs and as a parent would never be interested in visiting the Columbia campus again.
The Columbia of the mid-late '60s was a very different place than the Columbia of the 1990’s to the present.
You’re also forgetting that one of the reasons for the rise of those 1968 protests and the Weathermen was precisely because it was a reaction to the extreme conservatism and authoritarian mentality of university presidents/admins and mainstream establishment US culture of the early '60s and before along with a reaction to the Vietnam War.
Incidentally, this very context was one reason why Oberlin went from being a genteel mainstream LAC in the '50s judging by a yearbook from the early '50s to being known as a bastion of neo-hippie/radical left activism from the late '60s till the early '00s* was also influenced by the same factors.
One good illustration of this…Oberlin students of the '50s dressed much more formally in ways in which they wouldn’t be out of place at more mainstream stodgy Ivy league/peer east coast LACs of the same era and Oberlin actually had an ROTC detachment**.
- Afterwards, Oberlin seemed to have mellowed out and moved much more to the US mainstream judging by what I've heard from younger alums and Profs still teaching there.
** Which ended up getting effectively protested off campus in the late '60s because of widespread student ire over the Vietnam War.
And this ire wasn’t limited to the students. Vietnam War veterans who were conscripts/enlistees living in my old neighborhood in the '80s were evenly split between pro and anti-war camps. Only those who were former career SNCOs or commissioned officers tended on average to be staunchly in the pro-war camp.
@Hanna your friend’s diatribe would be more convincing if he presented a scintilla of evidence for his assumption that Columbia did not fully explore Sulkowicz’ accusations over the multiple times they were considered.
IIRC, there is actually evidence that they did not look at exculpatory evidence at least the first time: the emails in which she indicates a knowledge of and discussion of anal sex between them–something she apparently lied about–and her desire to continue the relationship, and so forth.
There is also a big difference between allowing her to carry her mattress around campus, in the guise of “performance art,” and allowing her to carry it at graduation.
Yup, I agree, that graduation narcissism and Columbia’s failure to recognize it for what it was is very much the point.
What were Columbia’s options with regard to the mattress at graduation?? One thing they knew for sure was that Ms. Sulkowicz was not going to give it up easily especially with the surrounding entourage assisting her.
I am sure they weighed their options carefully. They probably balanced the prospects of wrestling her to the ground with all the ensuing disruption against doing nothing. They chose the latter and probably saved themselves a lot of trouble in the long run. She would have definitely sued and the whole negative press cycle would have started all over again.
Was their decision any worse than the institutions allowing students to set fire to school property or smash windows in protest of campus speakers? Or the refusal to shut down a lot of other commencement protests? When it comes to any sort of violence schools across the board seem to be taking the tact of avoidance rather than confrontation.
“I interpreted the language in your post #52 as implying that Columbia was somehow predisposed to favor an accuser over the accused.”
I didn’t mean it that way. I’m talking about the likelihood that a statement will anger their audience of students, faculty, applicants, and alumni, who I think lean left compared to the U.S. population (as I do). There are probably data on this, but it’s fine with me if people don’t agree with my estimate.
“Why would they be reluctant to admit that harm was done to all parties involved in this matter including Columbia?”
For the reason @Ohiodad51 mentioned. The admission that “harm was done” can have big legal consequences, even if the harm was already visible and obvious to outside observers.
“But according to you they just issued an apology for their handling of a very contentious and public Title IX case.”
Right, and that could be used against them in some separate dispute.
“I tend to be inherently suspicious of people who claim to know the numbers or inside story.”
Who is claiming to know the numbers or inside story here? I said in so many words that I don’t know anything about this case except what’s in the public record. A number of posters who are/were lawyers have talked about patterns we see in analogous cases against big institutional defendants. We know what it generally costs to file an appeal, etc. No one has said they know the score on this case specifically.
“If they did, they wouldn’t even allude to this fact.”
Not always true. The fact that I’m an expert witness in certain cases is a matter of public record. Anyone can download my affidavit, etc. I’m proud of my work and happy for anyone to look it up in the case files. The names of John Doe plaintiffs are secret, but the alleged facts of a filed case and my opinion as a consultant or expert often are not.
You’re certainly right that I would not comment on private settlements or confidential client matters. None are discussed here.
@HarvestMoon1, if you have a link I would love a copy. It seems weird to me that another lawyer would talk about what he heard a lawyer say about a case, so I would interested in the context.
As to what Columbia could have done, two very obvious things would have been to not allow her to walk during graduation as long as she insisted on carrying her mattress and to not give her university credit for an obvious and not terribly clever effort to harass another student. It really is not that difficult.
One person’s protest is another person’s harassment, I suppose.
He actually tweeted those comments --so rightly or wrongly he had no such concerns. Check twitter – think the attorneys last name was Greenberg.
How do you allow someone not to walk at graduation? You would have to block them from entering. They did send her an email telling her not to bring the mattress so they can say they “tried.” I think Columbia did not want to even risk any sort of physical confrontation with her or her supporters. The press would have been all over that and she would have claimed first amendment violations.
Commencements are often the venue for protests and universities don’t seem to do much to change that.
I agree that there was really no way for Columbia to prevent her without sparking a mini-riot.
Ms. Sulkowicz seems to have parlayed this into a nice little career as a performance artist, as appeared to be her intent at the time. I also note that she is now referring to herself as a “woman of color.” It would appear from her mother’s last name that her mother is at least part Chinese. Interestingly, this was not mentioned as part of her identity before…
Oh come on they could have said “no, you can have it on the other side of the stage when you return to your seat.” The uni whimped out…
@HarvestMoon1, thanks. Not sure I am interested enough to troll twitter and look, lol.
And come on people. They could have not called her name during graduation at the very least if they were worried that she would over power security and take over the stage. Or given her credit for her project. None of you would take this position if it was a white guy carrying a sugn that said"women belong at Barnard, not Columbia"
@OhioMom2, very true. The problem arises when the school picks sides. That has been the issue all along.
Every uni should stop a student carrying a sign or object that doesn’t fit in a pocket …no signs, no purse size puppies, no mattresses…there is a time and place for such things and the ceremony is not the time or place.
As I stated before Columbia WON. It really doesn’t get much better than a 46 page decision from a federal judge that rules in your favor. Probably what happened is Columbia agreed to a “waiver of costs” against Nungesser to settle. That is standard operating procedure when you are the plaintiffs attorney and lose as badly as they did. Also probably 99 per cent of the cases like this are taken on a contingency. There is a saying in the plaintiffs legal profession that if it is not worth taking on a contingency it is not worth doing.
Also here is Columbias statement. It is not an apology at all. It also has no evidentiary value in any future proceeding
“Paul Nungesser and Columbia University have agreed to settle the lawsuit he filed in 2015. While Paul was a student at Columbia, he was accused of sexual misconduct. In November 2013, after a diligent and thorough investigation, Paul was found not responsible for any misconduct. Columbia University stands by that finding. In 2015, Paul graduated from Columbia in good standing as a distinguished John Jay Scholar. John Jay Scholars, like Paul, are recognized for their remarkable academic and personal achievements, dynamism, intellectual curiosity, and original thinking. Paul is currently enrolled at an internationally recognized film school and has launched a career as a filmmaker. Columbia recognizes that after the conclusion of the investigation, Paul’s remaining time at Columbia became very difficult for him and not what Columbia would want any of its students to experience. Columbia will continue to review and update its policies toward ensuring that every student––accuser and accused, including those like Paul who are found not responsible––is treated respectfully and as a full member of the Columbia
community.”
If Nungesser was such a victim as some say why didn’t he seek a TRO to restrain her conduct or file any lawsuit at all against Sulkowicz??? Probably because he had no case against her either.
I don’t think you give us much credit here. While such a sign might make my temperature rise and encourage me to dislike this person, I would not expect a university to forcefully take the sign away. Especially if it was going to involve some sort of brawl or fiasco. That’s his opinion and he’s entitled to it. And why interfere with people who are inevitably going to have public scorn raining down on them? Pictures of something like that will be plastered across every newspaper. Consequences will eventually follow in one form or another, I really don’t need to do anything.
And just for some perspective, a plane was commissioned by a women’s group for Stanford’s commencement ceremony that trailed a banner protesting the sentencing of Brock Turner. What could Stanford really do?
That’s illegal at public universities. It is allowed under the first amendment.