Discredited, the Legend of Mattress Girl Just Won't Go Away

Article here. Excerpt:

'Emma Sulkowicz, the infamous "mattress girl," surfaced this week on National Public Radio talking about her efforts to get a serial predator, "a sadist in the truest meaning of that word," off the Columbia University campus.

Sulkowicz, referred to in the story as an "activist and survivor," mentioned that the subject of her efforts won a settlement from Columbia this month in a lawsuit charging that Sulkowicz's activism amounted to gender-based harassment.

When a disciplinary hearing in late 2013 cleared Paul Nungesser of charges that he raped Sulkowicz, she refused to accept the outcome. Her protest—which included carrying a mattress on campus for most of her senior year to represent the "weight" of her victimization—made her the heroine of a new feminist revolution. It also made him the campus pariah after she outed him as her alleged rapist.

While the terms of the settlement are unknown, Columbia issued a statement effectively reaffirming Nungesser's exoneration. This was an important victory not just for Nungesser and his family, but for those who have argued the war on campus rape, however worthy its goals, has often trampled on the innocent.'

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