I kept thinking about this. By chance, a lawyer buddy happened to call, and I ran it past him. He pointed out, it’s a question of burden of proof. If she alleges that he raped her, then it’s her burden of proof, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt or with preponderance of evidence that he did it. And she is unable to do that.
But you want to flip the burden of proof. Could he prove, with preponderance of the evidence, that he did not rape her? No. I say he could not. If I were sitting on that tribunal, I would say that he did not meet the burden of proof.
This article says Nungesser was indeed there. It also states that Sulkowicz was asked to leave the mattress in a side room but ended up carrying it on stage anyway.
She did not shake President Bollinger’s hand, but whether this was an intentional snub or simply because her hands were full, it doesn’t say.
She had her hands full :-), but I doubt Bollinger was crying about it. Columbia will “hide” behind the memo with the request to leave large objects behind, when it comes up in the current lawsuit, but clearly Columbia could have had security there to take it away from the young lady.
I’ve always thought this was an interesting case. It seems to me that her behavior makes some people believe that her accusations are likely to be true (because why else would she be so adamant about this, making her whole life be about just this for a long time), while it makes others believe that her accusations are more likely to be untrue (because she seems narcissistic, or nutty). I’m a bit torn about that, myself. But I think Columbia’s handling of the situation was very weak.
Really @awcntdb? I believe my first introduction to your posts was on a thread where you seemed to have quite a preoccupation with the sugar baby culture. I have to admit I thought that was “weird.” “Interesting people” indeed.
I recall tons of people thinking Jackie’s story was true because of her actions, until it was really investigated. I suspect the same people are going to get bitten again. This case just has a longer timetable. Reminds me of the Duke rape case - took months and a trial to show it was totally false. That accuser’s actions had people believing her for a long time as well.
So maybe Columbia let her carry it today at Class Day, but not at the actual commencement tomorrow? Based on the video, each student’s name was called.
Well, I think the Vanderbilt case would be a much better example to advance the idea that there is a rape culture. Perhaps it’s less interesting now because it resulted in convictions. And there wasn’t much ambiguity, so there wasn’t as much to argue about.
I don’t see how this case is going to have any resolution. She might recant, or credible accusations toward him might be made by another person, but absent either of those unlikely events, nobody’s going to change their mind.
I don’t think there is going to be a resolution either. And at some point, she might come to realize that she allowed her performance art to overshadow the graduations that her classmates had worked so hard for, and that she will forever be known as mattress girl. I don’t think she was raped, but even if she was, if she were my daughter, I wouldn’t want this to be thing that identifies her for the rest of her life.
“Or, maybe she didn’t remember… and I assume she didn’t, because deliberately lying would be a foolish thing to do when she knows he has the emails/texts. Haven’t you ever forgotten a conversation, text or email?”
Sure, I’ve forgotten what was in texts or emails. But I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten that I exchanged sexual propositions with a man. Further, if I were going to make devastating public accusations about a classmate, I’d check my archive before I made any claims about what we’d talked about.
Deliberately lying would be foolish and shortsighted, but that doesn’t make it implausible. However, people in emotionally charged situations tell disprovable lies all the time, especially when they don’t expect the subject of the lies to speak up. Lawyers see this frequently in divorce cases. One thing we know for sure about Emma and Paul is that there was a terrible breakup. People in emotional crisis do all kinds of impulsive things. Bill Clinton lied about sex even though it was going to come back to bite him. It happens.
I truly believe that she believes she was raped. My thought is that the alleged slap in the face and the alleged choking turned the encounter around in her mind. Especially if she did in fact protest after that occurred. I also surmise that Nungesser believes he did not rape her. If her allegations are true, I think he chalked it up to rough but consensual sex. I do not think we will ever know on this one.
You can’t prove a negative. Ask me to prove that I didn’t rape YOU. I can’t.
The mental contortions which are necessary to attempt to prove that Mattress Girl was raped by that young man are truly astounding.
One thing I will grant you: it is entirely possible that she has succeeded in convincing herself that she was “raped,” since in her mind she could not possibly have consented to have repeated sex, including anal sex, with a person who didn’t ultimately want to be her boyfriend.
And I sincerely hope that he takes them to the cleaners for what they allowed her to do to him.
“Well, I think the Vanderbilt case would be a much better example to advance the idea that there is a rape culture. Perhaps it’s less interesting now because it resulted in convictions. And there wasn’t much ambiguity, so there wasn’t as much to argue about.”
Excellent point.
The best stories get the most attention. Not necessarily the most important or most representative cases.
The stories that get traction have one thing in common. There’s basically no proof. Mattress girl, Jameis Winston, UVA Jackie, Duke lacrosse, Missoula, etc. “Why did Columbia/FSU/UVA/Duke/Montana let those rapists go unpunished?” is a good story.
In the rare case where there is proof (like Vandy), there’s nothing to talk about. That was a horrible situation which also had the overlay of big time college sports. It had the makings of a really big story. But since there was proof, the college system worked well, the court system worked well, guilt was proven, punishment ensued.
The problem with acquaintence rape is not that we have bad systems in place. The problem is that there’s almost never proof. Given the nature of the offense, that’s not ever going to change. Which is why the hyper emphasis on reforming adjudication systems is, in my opinion, ineffective and pointless. No system is going to be very good at proving things if proof is usually absent.
The Vanderbilt case is the one I’d point to if I wanted to make the point that there is a hidden iceberg of cases. It was really only by chance that it was revealed, as I recall. It also left little room for victim-blamers.
Acquaintence rape is pretty similar to police brutality cases in this respect. Tough to prove since there’s rarely proof. Also tough to know how prevalent it is, since there’s rarely proof. When you get proof on video (like Vandy or Charleston), perps are routinely held accountable.
When those videos come out you can certainly make the argument that “see – that proves this stuff happens all the time.” But you can also argue that those cases show that the system works too.
Body cams will turn out to be solution to the proof problem in police brutality cases. There’s no solution to the proof problem in acquaintance rape. You can’t legislate away the need for proof (although DOE OCR is trying). But it is hard to generate more reliable proof. Although training your girls (as I’ve tried to do) to make noise/fuss would help.
I understand. But I was responding to @Hunt’s question. Hunt asked me if I would agree that, by the preponderance of evidence standard, Nungesser DID NOT rape Sulkowicz. I do not agree.
Not-rape is difficult to prove. It’s kind of like acquaintance rape in that sense. Of course, you would have an easy time proving that you didn’t rape me, because we are (I think?) separated by thousands of miles. But if we had been in a room together, and I later accused you of acquaintance rape, I couldn’t prove you did it, and you couldn’t prove you didn’t.
