On what conceivable basis could he stop her from selling the mattress?
Ugh, this could really go on forever. What if it were bought by an MRA group? They could put it in a different museum than she is envisioning. If she’s smart she should have a (private) ceremony and just burn the damned thing. It’s not the actual mattress anyway.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. President Bollinger shook Nungesser’s hand even though he is personally being sued by him. But he did not shake Sulkowicz’s hand because she carried a mattress up on the stage. Seems backwards to me.
I think Bollinger had his back up because he and the University had pretty much supported the art project and then when something was asked in return (leave the mattress in an adjoining room during the ceremony) that request was refused. Wondering if she consulted with the professor who oversaw the project on this decision.
I don’t see how Nungesser’s lawsuit, however it turns out, settles anything. The court may determine that Columbia violated Nungesser’s rights by allowing Sulkowicz to speak of “her rapist” when it was known that Nungesser was the guy she accused. But that doesn’t settle anything, really. We still won’t know if he did it. We’ll never know if he did it.
Did you all notice this latest study, that says that at some (unspecified) upstate New York college they surveyed, 9% of the freshman women say they were a victim of a forcible rape or attempted forcible rape (not an incapacitated rape, but a forcible rape) during their freshman year?
http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2815%2900076-2/abstract
NINE PERCENT, almost one in ten, say they were forcibly raped, or someone attempted to rape them forcibly, in their freshman year! And fifteen percent reported that someone raped them, or tried to rape them, when they were incapacitated.
The survey about rape was hidden in a bigger survey about health, to disguise the purpose of the study.
Okay, then maybe they should have asked Nungesser to drop the suit if he wanted a handshake.
If Nussberger did not get a handshake, the lawyer could probably add that to list of things showing that Columbia was treating him unfairly.
The lawsuit is not to settle the ultimate answer for what happened - we would only know that if one of the only two people who really know agrees with the other person.
The lawsuit is about whether the school acted correctly in light of their assessment and (apparently) the police assessment. Note, that the woman is not a part of the lawsuit.
Why is that backwards?
The University and the police made a determination that favored Nungesser. Shaking his hand, even with a lawsuit, recognizes that.
On the other hand, they explicitly asked people not to bring props/objects (or whatever their wording was) to the ceremony which Sulkowicz decided to ignore. If someone didn’t respect that by bringing a tuba on stage, I wouldn’t expect Bollinger to shake their hand either.
Bollinger said last year that the principles of academic freedom allow students to express themselves on issues of public debate. He didn’t add, “when it is convenient for us” or “so long as it is not embarrassing to the university.” IMO he should either shake everyone’s, or no one’s.
There isn’t a question of whether he ‘did it’ or not. He admits they had sex, that all the physical requirements happened. The only question is whether that sex act was rape. Legally, he will never be proved a rapist but of course anyone can judge him in a non-legal way.
[quoteLast week, Columbia exhibited Emma Sulkowicz’s highly disturbing and extremely graphic drawings of our son publicly on campus.
[/quote]
Now what’s this all about? Sure sounds like harassment to me.
Can’t find any reference to exhibited drawings beyond the parents’ statement. Does anyone know what they are talking sbout, specifically?
I’m wondering, as a matter of curiosity, who here has not read his complaint and has not read ALL the texts? Including the ones addressing anal sex that had not come out earlier? (Something that she apparently lied about. Maybe she didn’t realize he would be able to produce them.)
I ask because I’ve found that many people have just heard the accusations and haven’t actually read the evidence to the contrary. I’m interested in knowing whether reading those things affects people’s perception of his probable guilt or innocence.
Perhaps there were drawings as part of her undergraduate thesis, which was presented last week?
There are people here who are upset that Lena Dunham was called a big fat liar when all she did was accuse some guy (falsely) of rape, or who seem to think that any actions taken by Emma contrary to her prior statements can be explained by saying that rape trauma may cause victims to act in an otherwise irrational way. So no, I am guessing no minds are being changed by reading the text messages.
“I’m interested in knowing whether reading those things affects people’s perception of his probable guilt or innocence.”
Yes, the texts affected my perception. So did the complaint’s allegation that Emma publicly complained of feeling fear on campus at a time when Paul was in Europe.
I know that it is possible for abused people to go back to their abusers time and time again, tell the abuser they love him after being raped, etc. But that pattern is also consistent with the possibility that the accusation was motivated by heartbreak.
But I don’t put that much stock in my own perception, because as others have noted, we’ll never know.
Well to be fair, I think some of us objected to the word “fat”, not that there was a response to her allegation of rape. Keep the discussion to the merits of the issue is what we are saying.
For quoting text, if you take out the “backslash” in your first parenthesis and don’t capitalize the "q’ in “quote” you should be good to go. Second “backslash” stays in.
Ah ha. Thanks!
No one can ever know for sure what happened between them, but several of Sulkowicz’s actions make her accusation of rape seem unlikely. She waited over six months to report the “rape”, sent him several emails saying that she loved him - “I love you Paul” and also sent him an email before the “rape” asking him to “___ her in the ass.” The assault supposedly took place in a dorm, but no one heard her scream and saw her looking distressed.