For an entire school year, Emma Sulkowicz carried her mattress around Columbia University to protest sexual assault on college campuses. And today, when she graduated, she walked onto the stage carrying that same mattress, with help from her friends.
Sulkowicz’s act was part of a widely publicized, and school-sanctioned, art project called “Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight).” Last spring, Sulkowicz accused fellow Columbia student Paul Nungesser of raping her in 2012 — on her first day as an undergraduate — and as part of her senior thesis she vowed to carry her mattress with her everywhere she went until Nungesser and she were no longer students at the same university.
While Sulkowicz’s claims were investigated by Columbia, her case was dismissed and Nungesser was allowed to remain at the school.
Sulkowicz and her mattress have become icons in a wider movement of debates, protests and accusations about the ways in which universities deal with sexual abuse on campus. 106 colleges in the US are currently under federal investigation over their handling of sexual assault cases, and Sulkowicz’s now-viral campaign has helped publicize the need to reexamine existing legislation. Last fall, she even scored a VIP invite to the State of the Union, courtesy of Senator Kirsten Gilibrand.
Columbia e-mailed students on Monday morning requesting they not bring “large objects” into the graduation tent. (What these could be, other than Sulkowicz’s mattress, we’re not sure.) But Sulkowicz persuaded the administration to admit her mattress into the venue, where she graduated magna cum laude.
In his commencement speech this morning, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti alluded to Sulkowicz and told students, “never stop being activists.”