Columbia student carrying mattress until school expels her rapist

[garbon]

Some examples of administrative means to prevent: get a solid pledge from fraternities and sororities that parties will be dry, even off-campus (giving them some actual teeth to deal with fraternities that get around dry campus rules by holding events off-campus). 

We didn't allow sororities to host parties in their own housing.

[garbon]

I'm not sure what Bwog is but here's another bit about when she went to the police - which looks like 6 months post when uni decided against her.

http://bwog.com/2014/05/16/emma-sulkowicz-files-police-report-for-sexual-assault/

Emma Sulkowicz Files Police Report For Sexual Assault
In the last week, campuses around the country have been reeling over an increased focus on sexual assault, and publications from all fronts have addressed the topic. Here at Columbia, the past seven days have featured lists of four alleged rapists in bathrooms in Hamilton, Lerner, and Butler.

On the morning of May 14, according to Spec, Emma Sulkowicz, CC '15, filed a police report against Jean-Paul Nungesser, CC '15, for alleged sexual assault.  Nungesser's name appeared on the list circulating around campus listing the names of four alleged rapists.

According to Spec, Sulkowicz went to the police after finishing her finals on the 13th.  She filed a complaint with the NYPD after being dissatisfied with Columbia's internal handling of the case.

Sulkowicz's experience with the NYPD was harrowing, to say the least.  She describes the police as "dismissive," as they emphasized the fact that she had engaged in earlier consensual sex with Nungesser and that she could not remember specific details of the attack, like what shoes Nungesser was wearing. They demanded graphic details, and one officer also allegedly told friends Sulkowicz brought for emotional support that he "didn't believe [her] for a second."

Sulkowicz, one of 23 survivors who recently filed a Title IX claim against Columbia, was also featured in a Time Magazine video, part of Time's recent feature on sexual assault on college campuses. Sulkowicz writes, "The Columbia administration is harboring serial rapists on campus. They're more concerned about their public image than keeping people safe."

Columbia University has declined to comment on the matter.

[garbon]

Here's also what aljazaera reported at the time.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/5/19/why-college-rapevictimsdonatgotothepolice.html

Why college rape victims don't go to the police

Tired of being asked why she hadn't, Emma Sulkowicz reported her alleged rape to the police; this is what happened

At the end of finals, most college kids go party. When Emma Sulkowicz finished her last exam of the school year on Tuesday, she went back to her dorm room and dialed 911.

It had been almost two years since Sulkowicz, now a rising senior at Columbia University, says she was raped by a classmate. And it had been seven months since she revisited the experience at a school disciplinary hearing, a process that she said left her feeling physically sick, then empty and then scared.

In the hearing, Sulkowicz said she had to explain to the three administrators on the panel how anal rape worked. She told them she had been hit across the face, choked and pinned down, but, she said, one still seemed confused about how it was possible for someone to penetrate her there without lubricant. Sulkowicz said she had to draw them a diagram.

"To have random administrators being the ones who have to stomach the gory details of rape — they weren't prepared for this role," said Sulkowicz.

Her best friend was meant to be at the hearing; Sulkowicz had chosen her as her one "supporter." But her friend was kicked out of that role for talking about the case, according to Sulkowicz, in violation of the university's confidentiality policy. As punishment, her friend was also put on probation and made to write two reflection papers: one from the perspective of Sulkowicz and another from the accused.



"It was a really sick thing for them to do," Sulkowicz said, "to make my best friend write an essay from the perspective of the man who raped me."

In the end, the man Sulkowicz had accused was found not responsible. America Tonight confirmed that at least one other student at the university filed a report with the school charging that the same man had raped her, too. Columbia University said it does not discuss individual cases.

"I see him around campus, and it's really scary, because I know what he's capable of," Sulkowicz said. "... I know he's going to continue to rape other women on campus."

Sulkowicz went public with her story at an April event on Columbia's campus with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and she's become part of a growing wave of student activists campaigning against what they say are the failures of their colleges to handle sexual assault.

Many of those who learned about her story asked her the same question — to her face and on Facebook: Why didn't you just go to the police?

According to a 2000 study by the Department of Justice, fewer than 5 percent of college women who suffered completed or attempted rapes reported it to law enforcement. Almost a quarter of rape victims who did not report said they were afraid of being treated with hostility. Twenty-seven percent said they thought the police wouldn't think it was serious enough.

By Tuesday night, Sulkowicz had had enough: She was ready to do the one thing that so many people had asked her why she hadn't done. With her finals finished and her boyfriend and friend by her side, she called the police.

What color are his eyes?

It only took five to 10 minutes, Sulkowicz said, for four officers to come knock on the door of her dorm room.

They wouldn't talk to her in her room with her two friends present, because of "procedure," according to an audio recording Sulkowicz's friend made while she was present.

So Sulkowicz came out into her dormitory hall, where classmates walked by. There, the officers told her to recount her whole story.

From the questions officers asked her, Sulkowicz quickly got the impression that they thought she was making it all up. "You didn't call the police? Most women would have called the police," one said, according to Sulkowicz. "You don't even remember the color of his eyes?"

Sulkowicz said that same officer also insisted that she hadn't been raped, telling her, "You invited him into your room. That's not the legal definition of rape."

After the initial questioning, the officers wanted to take Sulkowicz to the station alone, but her friends said they insisted on joining. They drove to a station on New York City's Upper West Side.

When they arrived, Sulkowicz filled out her police report in a room with smooth jazz blaring. But that station didn't have a special victims division, a unit that specializes in sex crimes, so it was back into a police car to head to a station across town that had one.

The officer driving lit up a cigarette. Thinking her friend was close to the breaking point, Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, also a rising Columbia senior, told the officer her throat was hurting, and asked if he wouldn't mind putting out his smoke.

"You're in my office right now, alright?" he said, according to the audio recording.

At the next station, while Sulkowicz was questioned in a private room, the same officer started a conversation with her two friends. Ridolfi-Starr told him that she thought the police's questioning had been uncomfortable.

"Well, it's supposed to be uncomfortable," the officer responded. "If it goes to trial, this is what's going to happen ... You think that was bad? Nah."

"For every single rape I've had, I've had 20 that are total bull----," he added. "It's also my type of job to get to the truth. If that means being harsh about it, that's what I do."

A little later, he went on to remark that Sulkowicz couldn't even tell him the eye color of the man she was accusing.

"He made it very clear that he didn't believe it, and that she had handled the whole case improperly," said Erik Ramberg, Sulkowicz's boyfriend and a rising Columbia senior. "He was illustrating exactly why girls feel uncomfortable going to the police. The worst fears of a stereotype confirmed."

When asked to comment, the New York Police Department only responded by e-mail, writing only that, "This is an active ongoing investigation by the Manhattan special victim squad."

In the last few years, the NYPD has made an effort to better handle sexual assault reports, under a crush of criticism that its officers were dismissing and minimizing complaints.

Earlier this month, the NYPD held its first dedicated 80-hour training for special victims division staff, according to Mary Haviland, the executive director of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, who was impressed by the portion of the event she attended. But there are only a few hundred officers in the special victims division, not nearly enough to respond to every complaint of sexual violence.

In 2010, a task force appointed to address criticisms recommended new training protocols for officers dealing with sex crime victims. Upon those recommendations, the New York City Police Academy introduced a video on sexual violence response for officers in training, according to Haviland, but it's unclear whether it's been shown to officers already serving. The NYPD did not respond to questions about their training guidelines.

When Sulkowicz's experience was recounted Monday at a campus sexual assault roundtable hosted by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the senator, who is drafting legislation to address campus sexual assault, said she was "shocked" that a police department of that size would have dispatched someone ill-equipped to respond.

As sexual misconduct on college campuses has become a national issue, with the White House weighing in last month, many commentators have questioned why colleges are in the business of handling sexual assault at all.

"There's a multi-hundred year history of a complete failure of the criminal justice system to handle sexual assault," explained David Lisak, a forensic consultant who has advised more than 100 colleges on how to handle sexual misconduct.

"Victims are frightened by it. There's no confidence in it. [Not all that long ago] there was no point in reporting if you couldn't show by the bruises, cuts and broken bones on your body that you had fought to your end and finally been overcome."

For rape victims who don't want to go to the police, the college system provides a mechanism where they can at least get their rapist kicked out of their class, dorm or campus. Most colleges require a much lower standard of proof: more likely than not, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt. So in theory, on college campuses, rape victims should have much easier access to some sort of justice.

"Female sexual assault victims on college campuses, where alcohol was present and it happened behind closed doors with little or no witnesses, that conviction rate has to be 1 percent, at best," said Brett Sokolow, the CEO of the consulting and law firm the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. "You're basically saying, 'Let the rapists go free.' The only system that can hold them accountable is the college system."

Ridolfi-Starr was also sexually assaulted as a student at Columbia and said she would never consider reporting to the police after witnessing what Sulkowicz experienced. "I would never, ever subject myself to that kind of emotional abuse," she said.

And if other victims were to come to her and ask whether they should report, Ridolfi-Starr said she would advise them, "Clear your schedule for 48 hours, because you're going to want to sit and cry."

On bright side, said Sulkowicz, the police now have her accused rapist's name on record, in case he were to assault somebody else. "America Tonight" chose not to publish his name because he hasn't been arrested or charged.

But ultimately, Sulkowicz has one message for rape victims.

"If you want to go to the police, this is what to expect: You'll be verbally abused. But at least no one will yell at you for not going to the police and getting verbally abused," she said. "Just take your pick."

[grumbler]

From her interview, it seems her beef is that she wasn't allowed to continually appeal the verdict at the administrative hearing until they agreed with her.

I think you protest too much. Making one appeal that denied is hardly "continually".

I think you misunderstand her argument.  She had the one appeal that is currently allowed.  That appeal was denied.  She wants a new process that allows her to appeal as many times as she wants until she gets the verdict she desires.

I will admit that it is unclear as to whether she wants the person she is accusing of also being able to appeal until he gets the verdict that he wants.  Presumably, the school would be too progressive to ever grant his appeal, but if he is allowed as many appeals as she is allowed, it would be a moot issue since he would graduate without ever actually being expelled.

[derspiess]

Some examples of administrative means to prevent: get a solid pledge from fraternities and sororities that parties will be dry, even off-campus (giving them some actual teeth to deal with fraternities that get around dry campus rules by holding events off-campus). 

We didn't allow sororities to host parties in their own housing.

But did you allow fraternities to do so?

[garbon]

From her interview, it seems her beef is that she wasn't allowed to continually appeal the verdict at the administrative hearing until they agreed with her.

I think you protest too much. Making one appeal that denied is hardly "continually".

I think you misunderstand her argument.  She had the one appeal that is currently allowed.  That appeal was denied.  She wants a new process that allows her to appeal as many times as she wants until she gets the verdict she desires.

Can you point me to where she has stated this?

[garbon]

Some examples of administrative means to prevent: get a solid pledge from fraternities and sororities that parties will be dry, even off-campus (giving them some actual teeth to deal with fraternities that get around dry campus rules by holding events off-campus). 

We didn't allow sororities to host parties in their own housing.

But did you allow fraternities to do so?

Yes, fraternities were allowed to do so. Actually sororities were allowed to have parties in their housing - just it couldn't be whatever the "level of party" was that was considered a "campus-wide party." If a sorority wanted to have a campus wide party (basically meaning that they were allowed to ignore firecodes and whole campus was invited) - they typically did so then in conjunction with a frat party or at one of the other housing units. Yeah pretty sexist really.

[Malthus]

I posted the aljazaera article above.

Thing is, one of the cited beefs in the article is a fear that the cops won't take the case seriously enough, or indeed, do anything much.

In her quoted interview - that you quoted - she claims she dropped the case because the cops were taking up too much of her time with their investigation, calling her all the time, etc.

Were the cops harsh, abrasive and dismissive? We have her word on it - mind you, she's hardly impartial, and some of her stated beefs are simply strange (smooth jazz blaring? - granted, Muzak is a crime against humanity). Were they prompt to show up, and diligent in following up her case? Ironically, we have her word on that, too. According to her own story, they showed up in "5 or 10 minutes", took her to a special victims unit, and that unit followed up (too much, according to her).

[Martinus]

From her interview, it seems her beef is that she wasn't allowed to continually appeal the verdict at the administrative hearing until they agreed with her.

I think you protest too much. Making one appeal that denied is hardly "continually".

I think you misunderstand her argument.  She had the one appeal that is currently allowed.  That appeal was denied.  She wants a new process that allows her to appeal as many times as she wants until she gets the verdict she desires.

Can you point me to where she has stated this?

She is carrying a goddamn mattress and making a spectacle out of herself saying she will do so until he is expelled. Surely, if the college has already made a decision not to expel him, then in order to reverse this decision, it would need to come as a result of an appeal against the earlier decision she disagrees with. You understand that, right?

[derspiess]

I'd be interested to hear a female poster's take on this.  Meri, perhaps.

[garbon]

I posted the aljazaera article above.

Oh sorry, didn't see it.

Thing is, one of the cited beefs in the article is a fear that the cops won't take the case seriously enough, or indeed, do anything much.

In her quoted interview - that you quoted - she claims she dropped the case because the cops were taking up too much of her time with their investigation, calling her all the time, etc.

Were the cops harsh, abrasive and dismissive? We have her word on it - mind you, she's hardly impartial, and some of her stated beefs are simply strange (smooth jazz blaring? - granted, Muzak is a crime against humanity). Were they prompt to show up, and diligent in following up her case? Ironically, we have her word on that, too. According to her own story, they showed up in "5 or 10 minutes", took her to a special victims unit, and that unit followed up (too much, according to her).

I mean she's a young woman. Now perhaps during your poverty days you were very well put together and consistent with your thoughts and message at all times but I don't expect that from a young 20 something based on my interactions with them (/memory of being one). Add on top of that a traumatic event and having to deal with police officers and I can totally see how she might lash out in all directions (including smooth jazz non-complaint).

Point of fact is that dealing with police officers (and famously the NYPD) is not fun and a tiring process even for those who have not been victims of such crimes. From her description even though they were promptly handling her case, it sounds like they were pretty dismissive. I can easily imagine how she decided it all wasn't worth it but then later this summer decided she had been foolish (as was the case in how long it took her to even approach the university about it). And with that I can see how she might not want to go back to the callous cops, who would certainly be more skeptical at this point, but opt for this "easier" protest route.

I understand that all of this adds a degree of doubt her and makes her less of an ideal banner for raising awareness about rape on college campuses (as like you've said it muddies just exactly what the message is), but by the same token, I don't know that we should expect victims to act completely rational and calculating - expecting that if they are telling a truth then they will participate fully and never waver.

What I haven't seen yet is evidence of changing stories that she told about the actual rape.

[Ed Anger]

I'd be interested to hear a female poster's take on this.  Meri, perhaps.

SCRRECH! WHARGARBLL!

[garbon]

From her interview, it seems her beef is that she wasn't allowed to continually appeal the verdict at the administrative hearing until they agreed with her.

I think you protest too much. Making one appeal that denied is hardly "continually".

I think you misunderstand her argument.  She had the one appeal that is currently allowed.  That appeal was denied.  She wants a new process that allows her to appeal as many times as she wants until she gets the verdict she desires.

Can you point me to where she has stated this?

She is carrying a goddamn mattress and making a spectacle out of herself saying she will do so until he is expelled. Surely, if the college has already made a decision not to expel him, then in order to reverse this decision, it would need to come as a result of an appeal against the earlier decision she disagrees with. You understand that, right?

You understand, of course, that she's going to take off once she graduates right? This protesting performance art piece isn't actually likely to drive any appeal and certainly isn't going to drive several appeals.

Besides, you say spectacle like it is a bad thing. That's the whole point of the piece and it looks to be pretty darn effective in garnering attention.

[LaCroix]

it doesn't seem like stanford did anything wrong. they investigated it, and i'm sure they took it seriously. she keeps stressing this comment by one of the judges, "how does someone even have anal sex without lubricant?" at best, it could show the comment was an incredulous response by the judge, but more evidence would have to be presented. honestly, it seems more likely that it had nothing to do with lack of belief but more surprise and even sympathy for her. her recollection is going to be flawed and biased. this is a problem when victims wait before reporting the incident immediately.

the reflection paper isn't crazy, even if it appears tactless. a student was allowed by the board to witness a confidential proceeding, and that student then talked about it outside of the proceeding. anyone who knew the student had access to confidential information is going to have a tendency to believe that student, regardless of what actually occurred during the proceeding.

can't really comment on the interaction with the police. if there's evidence that the current NYPD is hostile (not perceived hostility) to rape victims, then that's unacceptable. but, i'm not going to take this girl's word for it. she lost any credibility when she started dragging a mattress around. and, comments taken out of context (which may or may not have been the case here) don't prove anything.

[The Brain]

You were carrying a mattress in a cocktail bar, when I met you.