@cosar, I’ll take the opinion of my S, who is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and a working journalist, over yours when it comes to journalistic ethics.
I also completely disagree on the sympathy issue. I find no loss of sympathy because he sued Columbia. If anything, it increases my sympathy for him
Nungesser has had to stand by in silence while Mattress Girl trashed his reputation with the connivance of Columbia and others, as far as I can tell in complete defiance of the rules regarding confidentiality of Title IX proceedings on campus.
He may or may not win his case, but he WILL be able to put his evidence out for public view, including her solicitation of anal sex and all the rest. He will be able to substantially repair his reputation, even if his case is thrown out by an unfair judge like Furman.
@Consolation, if your son honestly believes that it was a violation of journalistic ethics for the Spectator to print Nungesser’s name (as opposed to simply telling you he believes that because it’s so obviously what you want to hear), then perhaps he should be the one suing Columbia - for a poor education at the School of Journalism. Btw, Nungesser has hardly been standing by “in silence,” or have you missed his campaign to trash Sulkowicz in the press (which I doubt given that you seem to be eating it up)? This lawsuit is simply the latest chapter in that campaign. And Judge Furman is a very highly regarded federal judge, so I’m happy to take his opinions over yours on the law.
Also, he can’t technically sue her for slander because she didn’t technically name him. Or if she did, his lawyers would have to prove she was lying, not just prove he didn’t rape her. How to do that when he’s had 4 different people complain about him? Maybe they thought it would be easier to sue Columbia.
I just wish it were all over even while I can’t stop paying attention, like some kind of mad ping-pong game - back and forth, back and forth.
Miltenberg’s motives aren’t difficult to fathom. He’s working on building a practice in this area. This is from his website:
He’s bringing this case because it will get a ton of publicity and garner more clients.
As for Nungesser, who said when he first started speaking publicly in February that he didn’t plan legal action, the lawsuit allows him to continue his PR campaign by putting a bunch of texts into the public domain without fear of legal repercussions. Or maybe he’s just being manipulated by Miltenberg.
Just to be clear, I think Sulkowicz’s mattress stunt is ridiculous, and I’ve thought that from the beginning. But Nungesser’s lawsuit stunt is just as bad, if not worse. And the statement that Columbia “actively and knowingly supported attacks on Paul Nungesser” is ludicrous. As I said earlier, whatever sympathy I had for Nungesser is now out the window.
@greenwitch, I completely agree with you that I wish it were all over. Sulkowicz and Nungesser are both graduating in another month. I wish they’d both stop with the publicity-mongering and just graduate and get on with their lives. Neither is doing his/her cause a service at this point.
Columbia’s administration can’t have it both ways: if they believed Nungesser sexually assaulted Sulkowicz, then they should have found him responsible and expelled him. If they believed he did not sexually assault Sulkowicz, then they needed to protect his right to a harassment-free environment during his time as a student at Columbia.
I appreciate @Ohiodad51’s explanation about how this lawsuit can be used to define the scope of Title IX:
I am hopeful that lawsuits like these will lead to a challenge of the legality (or at least scope) of the OCR’s Dear Colleague letter’s interpretation of Title IX.
I wanted to make two points about the other case against Columbia discussed in the NYLJ article and the one against Vassar. I read the NYLJ article, and from the quotes about the case and the case against Vassar discussed by @dstark. From what I gather, those cases essentially alleged that the universities involved violated their due process rights in the way in which they conducted disciplinary proceedings. They seem to be much more of a kind of Bivens actions (a lawsuit against a federal actor for violations of civil rights), assumedly by claiming that the Title IX guidelines from the OCR and the procedures set up by the Universities are violative of the due process clause. That is a different case than the case here as outlined in the complaint, and I am not sure the decisions will be persuasive in deciding this case. If that isn’t confusing enough, here is a simpler point. Be careful about relying on trial court level decisions in areas of what lawyers call “emerging law”. Clearly, things are changing with Title IX litigation. Until we start seeing some Circuit Ct decisions, it is really hard to see which way the courts are leaning in this area.
Does anyone think Columbia will do anything before graduation re: her carrying the mattress across the stage, which she has said she will do if necessary?
If they shut her down, they could say it has nothing to do with the lawsuit or Paul, but rather the campus and student body as a whole, and wanting a pleasant day for everyone.
I wonder if Paul and his parents will even attend? It would not surprise me if some sort of response was planned for him getting his diploma or his name being read out.
If my child were graduation from Columbia this year, I would not want to deal with any of this and would not want my child’s day overshadowed by “art”. I wonder if Columbia is getting any feedback of this sort from parents and/or alumni?
Its a d@@mned if you do, d@@mned if you don’t situation. If they stop the show now, are the acknowledging her art project is not only disruptive, but harassing? Is Columbia at least tacitly acknowledging they have some responsibility to control what is other wise legal behavior by their students? If the College lets her continue, how many current and potential donors are going to get pissed, and how much worse does the press get? Tough call.
The fact that she received course credit for her attacks makes his claim somewhat less ludicrous in my book.
My perception of this is that Columbia–and lots of other people–took sides in this case, and they may have chosen the wrong side–and they did this after a decision that was supposed to end the dispute. That seems very wrong to me.
I think they can easily prevent the mattress on stage by requiring all graduates to arrive on stage with only the graduation gown on - no banners, no horns, no messages on t-shirts or caps. No mattresses.
Paul’s already missed a lot of the college experience when he was banned from the clubs and never reinstated. If he wants to go to graduation, he should go.
I wonder if Paul had come to class every day wearing a black-paint smudged shirt with the big word “SMEARED” spelled on it, if the university would have been as tolerant of his performance art.
That is not the way I read [url =http://nylawyer.nylj.com/adgifs/decisions15/042415furman.pdf] Furman’s decision on the John Doe case. Furman says that Doe is alleging discrimination in violation of Title IX itself rather than attacking the OCR guidelines. Doe says he was discriminated against because he was male: his disciplinary case had an “erroneous outcome” because he was male, and the decision to instigate the proceeding or the severity of the penalty were in part based on his male gender (“selective enforcement”). But Furman doesn’t find any alleged facts in the complaint that, if true, would demonstrate the anti-male bias. The complaint, according to Furman, repeatedly asserts that various actors were anti-male, but doesn’t give reasons for that conclusion.
In other words, it’s not relevant to John Doe’s complaint that his disciplinary hearing was a result of OCR guidelines for Title IX. He could have made the same complaint for any other disciplinary hearing-- it would be a Title IX violation, for example, if males were treated differently in discipline cases involving alcohol or plagiarism.
If the mattress project was being done for class credit, then the class would be over and the grades would be in before the graduation ceremony. If Columbia is smart, they will follow that line of thinking and disallow any extensions of any class projects after the grading period is over. Sadly, it has now taken on a life of its own.
I was surprised that Professor Kessler was male. I guess I had just assumed, wrongly, that it would have been a female professor supporting this project.
When you take into account the cast of characters and the city in which this is playing out, being a German national is probably not helping Paul either.
