Lawsuit includes a professor and the president of the university.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A Columbia University male student who was accused of rape and consequently the subject of a very public campus action by the alleged female victim, filed a federal discrimination lawsuit on Thursday against the school, its president, and one of its professors, reported The New York Times.
Paul Nungesser was cleared of any responsibility in the rape claim by the university and is now claiming in his lawsuit that he was the victim of a harassment campaign by the other student, Emma Sulkowicz.
Sulkowicz’s case has drawn national attention, partly because she has carried a mattress around Columbia’s campus as a form of protest and self-described artistic expression, which also serves as her senior thesis, “Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight).”
The lawsuit alleges that Jon Kessler, the professor who is named as a defendant, not only approved the project but “publicly endorsed her harassment and defamation” of Nungesser.
Roger Hornsby, a Columbia spokesman, told multiple media outlets the university had no comment.
“I think it’s ridiculous that Paul would sue not only the school but one of my past professors for allowing me to make an art piece,” Sulkowicz told the Times.
Sulkowicz has attested that in August 2012, Nungesser hit her, pinned her down and raped her in a dormitory. Nungesser has since characterized Sulkowicz’s mattress project as an act of bullying intended to hound him out of Columbia. He claims they had consensual sex.
Nungesser is a German citizen, the Associated Press noted, and said Sulkowicz was his friend at one point before she started calling him a “serial rapist” repeatedly, according to the University Herald.
2 Comments
Mattress Performance, what bullshit.
I read the complaint, it is very damning. It’s pretty clear this was a coordinated publicity stunt and that no rape actually occurred.
I hope he makes millions.