NEW YORK (AP) — A Columbia University student sued the school Thursday, saying it failed to protect him against harassment when a female student went public with claims he raped her after school and law enforcement authorities rejected her case.
The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court by Paul Nungesser, a German citizen who said onetime friend Emma Sulkowicz has repeatedly and publicly called him a “serial rapist,” resulting in national and international media attention.
Defendants include the school, its board of trustees, President Lee C. Bollinger and Professor Jon Kessler. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages.
“Columbia University’s effective sponsorship of the gender-based harassment and defamation of Paul resulted in an intimidating, hostile, demeaning … learning and living environment,” the lawsuit said.
Robert Hornsby, a Columbia spokesman, said the school had no comment. Email messages requesting comment from Bollinger and Kessler were not immediately returned. The suit was filed three days after a judge tossed out another gender-based lawsuit brought by a male student against Columbia University.
In his lawsuit, Nungesser said a Columbia-owned website had presented as fact that he sexually assaulted Sulkowicz, a senior majoring in visual arts. It said that the school allowed Sulkowicz to carry a mattress into classes, the library and campus-provided transportation as part of her senior thesis, that Kessler approved the “Mattress Project” for her course credit and that Sulkowicz’s pledge to carry her mattress to graduation may prevent Nungesser and his parents, who’d like to fly from Germany, from participating in graduation ceremonies.
“Day-to-day life is unbearably stressful, as Emma and her mattress parade around campus each and every day,” the suit said.
As a result of publicity that resulted in media reports in 35 countries, the lawsuit said, Nungesser “has been subjected to severe, pervasive … and threatening behavior by other Columbia students, believing that Paul is a ‘serial rapist,’ whenever Paul has appeared at university activities.”
The complaint also said he wants to stay in the United States, where he has been dating a girlfriend for over a year, and is seeking consulting work in New York, though job prospects have been “severely jeopardized” by the school’s support of Sulkowicz.
In an email responding to a request for comment, Sulkowicz wrote: “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.
“It’s ridiculous that he would read it as a ‘bullying strategy,’ especially given his continued public attempts to smear my reputation, when really it’s just an artistic expression of the personal trauma I’ve experienced at Columbia. If artists are not allowed to make art that reflect on our experiences, then how are we to heal?”
Sulkowicz has argued her case was badly mishandled by the school disciplinary panel after she reported in 2013 she was raped in her dorm months before. She was among 23 students who sued Columbia last year, saying it mishandled sexual assault cases. She also attended President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in January at the invitation of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
The Associated Press normally does not identify people claiming they were sexually assaulted, but makes exceptions when the alleged victim has spoken publicly on the subject.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this story.
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Let’s not forgot that this guy was also accused by two other female students and a male student of assault. In the case of one of those accusers, he was found responsible, but the case was tossed on appeal, because the accuser had graduated and was unable to comeback and forth to Columbia for proceedings.
I understand that this lends credence to Sulkowicz’s account, but accusations are not convictions. The school is obligated to follow the law and its own procedures for determining guilt. That may suggest that the school’s procedures should be reformed, but in the absence of a criminal conviction or a determination by the school that the guy in question committed the acts he’s accused of committing, the school can’t just expel him.
Agreed. There cannot be any exceptions to “innocent until proven guilty”. No one wants to think they are supporting a rapist over his victim, but an “alleged rapist” is not a rapist.
The Mattress did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the proceedings.
What doesn’t lend credibility is the months of friendly messages she sent him and the fact that it wasn’t until he stopped his relationship that she colluded with two other women to file complaints against, one another former girlfriend. The fact remains that he was found “not responsible”. Yet, she has been allowed, by very University the found him " not responsible" to bully him by calling him a serial rapist. She is nothing but an attention hound. The fault is the University and the media who allows this behavior.