Date rape - Update Colombia

Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia student who claims she was raped and became famous for carrying a mattress everywhere, graduated yesterday – yes, carrying the mattress across the stage:

Aided by four friends, and to the cheers of some of her classmates, the student who protestedColumbia University's handling of her sexual assault complaint by carrying a mattress around campus all year hoisted it for the last time on Tuesday as she crossed the stage at a graduation ceremony.

Until seconds before the student, Emma Sulkowicz, walked onstage, Columbia officials had asked her to leave the mattress behind. President Lee C. Bollinger turned away as she crossed in front of him, failing to shake her hand, as he did with the other graduates.

Ms. Sulkowicz's graduation, and the end of her protest, brought to a close a tumultuous year, in which Columbia became a focus of the movement to change how universities address sexual assault.

While I believe date rape on college campuses is an extremely serious and widespread problem, the more I read about Ms. Sulkowicz, the more I question her story. The student she accused, Paul Nungesser, who also graduated yesterday, has fought back, denying the accusations, speaking to the media, filing a lawsuit, and presenting extensive evidence that casts serious doubts on Sulkowicz's story.

 

Here's an excerpt from a Daily Caller story about his lawsuit:

While Sulkowicz has become a national hero in the campaign against campus sexual assault, the lawsuit uses Facebook messages and other evidence to paint a picture of Sulkowicz as a jilted love interest whose deep obsession with Nungesser transformed into a savage hatred. The complaint extensively draws from Facebook conversations between the two, quoting Sulkowicz as regaling Nungesser with tales of her past and present sexual experiences. At one point, she expresses fears for her reputation after contracting an STD following drunken sex at a party.

"i've officially had sex with all of John Doe' best friends," she said in the exchange, according to the complaint. "did lotsa drugs – jk just got very drunk – well anyways – now i have an std i actually hate John Doe like if a girl is about to puke – don't put your unprotected dick into her. . . I realy don't want to be known as the girl who contracted an std because she was drunk you know? it is more his fault for fucking me unconscious – i mean i was conscious but clearly not in my right mind. . . i was literally blackout. . . like i puked all over the place."

The complaint also argues that Sulkowicz showed an intense romantic interest in Nungesser during the summer of 2012, which Nungesser spent in Germany. She sent him more than a dozen messages along the lines of "PAUL I MISS YOU PAUL I MISS YOU PAUL I MISS YOU PAULLL" and "I would LOVE to have you here – omg – we could snuggle."

The lawsuit even argues it was Sulkowicz herself who first broached the possibility of anal sex with Nungesser, even though claims of forced anal sex are central to her claim of rape.

"f**k me in the but," she said bluntly during one Facebook exchange.

And here's an excerpt from a detailed article in The Daily Beast:

Now, Nungesser has agreed to speak to The Daily Beast and tell his version of the events. This story, partly backed by materials made public here for the first time and corroborated by a former Columbia graduate student who played a secondary role in the disciplinary process, is dramatically at odds with the prevailing media narrative. On one point, however, Nungesser and his supporters agree with the pro-Sulkowicz camp: A grave injustice has been done.

Seated in the same room where he once received that fateful call, now empty on a non-class day, Nungesser looks back on his relationship with Sulkowicz. They got to know each other in their freshman year, he says, mainly as fellow leaders in the Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program (COÖP), a freshman pre-orientation experience with a focus on outdoor activities. Sulkowicz also rushed Alpha Delta Phi (ADP), a coed fraternity with a literary and intellectual bent, which Nungesser joined a few months later. By the end of his first year in college in spring 2012, says Nungesser, "we were beginning to develop a very close friendship; it was an intimate friendship where we would hug each other and so on, but always platonic." That platonic friendship included several sleepovers in Sulkowicz's room—one of which, he says, eventually turned into a make-out session and ended in sex.

"The next morning, we had a talk about it and we both felt that it was not really a good idea," says Nungesser, explaining that they didn't want to risk their friendship. Four or five weeks later, he says, there was another sleepover that led to another sexual encounter, another talk, and another decision to move on—soon after which the two parted ways for the summer break.

After a summer of affectionate and often intimate Facebook chats (screenshots of which Nungesser, who has since deactivated all of his social-media accounts, provided to The Daily Beast), Nungesser and Sulkowicz returned to Columbia in late August and saw each other at an end-of-summer party for COÖP leaders. As the party was wrapping up, they started talking in the courtyard, then began to hug and kiss and ended up going back to Sulkowicz's dorm room—at her invitation, according to Nungesser. He says he had consumed two mixed drinks and was "buzzed, but not intoxicated or anything." (Sulkowicz has previously described him as "drunk" during the incident.)

While Sulkowicz has always said that they started out having consensual sex, her account diverges drastically from Nungesser's at this point. According to Sulkowicz, he suddenly and brutally assaulted her, then picked up his clothes and left without a word, leaving her stunned and shattered on the bed. According to Nungesser, they briefly engaged in anal intercourse by mutual agreement, then went on to engage in other sexual activity and fell asleep. He says that he woke up early in the morning and went back to his own room while Sulkowicz was still sleeping.

Sulkowicz has said in interviews that she was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk to anyone about the rape, let alone report it; an account of her mattress protest by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith says that she "suffered in silence" in the aftermath of the assault. Yet Nungesser says that for weeks after that night, he and Sulkowicz maintained a cordial relationship, and says she seemingly never indicated that anything was amiss.

Nungesser provided The Daily Beast with Facebook messages with Sulkowicz from August, September, and October 2012. (In an email to The Daily Beast, Sulkowicz confirmed that these records were authentic and not redacted in any way; while she initially offered to provide "annotations" explaining the context on the messages, she then emailed again to say that she would not be sending them.) On Aug. 29, two days after the alleged rape, Nungesser messaged Sulkowicz on Facebook to say, "Small shindig in our room tonight—bring cool freshmen." Her response:

lol yusss

Also I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz

because we still haven't really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr