09/30/2026
"Land of the Free and Home of the Brave"?
When a student carries a mattress across her campus and over her graduation stage at Columbia just to be heardβand when a Survivor at Cornell has to file a lawsuit just to get a investigation reopened after being brutally failed by her schoolβwe are failing as a society.
These are just 2 examples.
The data consistently shows that the majority of sexual assaults are never reported to law enforcement or school officials.
Roughly 69% of sexual assaults in the U.S. are never reported to law enforcement, meaning fewer than 1 in 3 survivors file an official report.
Why Victims Don't Report: According to federal victim surveys, the most common reasons survivors give for not reporting include:
β’Fear of retaliation or social ostracization.
β’Believing the police or institution wouldn't or couldn't do anything to help.
β’Feeling the experience was a private matter or wanting to protect the perpetrator (8 out of 10 survivors know their attacker).
β’Fear of not being believed or facing institutional "victim-blaming."Low
Conviction Rates: For the small fraction of cases that are reported, fewer than 5% lead to an arrest, and fewer than 3% result in a felony conviction. This system failure itself often deters survivors from coming forward.
As a mother who just watched my child graduate, my heart breaks for these students and every survivor forced to carry the weight of an institution's total lack of accountability.
Universities are supposed to shape future leaders, yet they act as a microcosm of a culture where human decency is sidelined for institutional self-preservation. When did we start tolerating this? When did we forget how to be basic human beings instead of hedonistic savages?
We need to do better. We need real accountability. Silence is consent, and I refuse to stay quiet.
π¨ 12 YEARS BEFORE THE CORNELL 7, A MATTRESS BECAME A NATIONAL SYMBOL FOR CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT
More than a decade ago, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz became the face of a national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses when she began carrying a roughly 50-pound dorm mattress everywhere she went on campus.
Sulkowicz said she had been sexually assaulted in her dorm room by fellow Columbia student Paul Nungesser in 2012. He denied the allegation, and Columbia ultimately found him not responsible through its disciplinary process.
In September 2014, during her senior year, Sulkowicz turned what she said happened to her into her senior visual arts thesis, βMattress Performance (Carry That Weight).β
Her rule was simple: she would carry the mattress around Columbia for as long as she and the man she accused attended the same school. If he was expelled or otherwise left Columbia, she could put it down.
But that never happened. So for the rest of her senior year, Sulkowicz carried that mattress to classes and around campus. She wasn't allowed to ask anyone to help her carry it, although she could accept help when other students offered.
Then came graduation. On May 19, 2015, because Nungesser had remained at Columbia, Sulkowicz carried the mattress with her across the stage, with other students helping her. The image became one of the most recognizable symbols of the movement demanding changes in how colleges handled sexual-assault complaints.
And now, more than a decade later, βCarry That Weightβ is being talked about again while another Ivy League university, Cornell, faces serious questions about its handling of Jane Doe's allegations involving the Cornell 7.
Different case. Different university. Different allegations. But once again, people are asking whether a university's internal process adequately responded when a student reported sexual assault.
Do you remember Emma Sulkowicz carrying that mattress around Columbia?
