With vibrant red tape covering their mouths, a handful of student activists gathered on the Quad midday Tuesday to demonstrate against rape culture and express disappointment over Syracuse University’s recent handling of sexual assault cases.
The protest aimed to follow the 2014 performance “Carry That Weight,” in which Emma Sulkowicz carried her mattress around Columbia University to protest the dismissal of rape charges against her alleged attacker.
The students, who were not affiliated with any student organizations or academic departments, according to the event's Facebook page [7], described the gathering as both silent protest and art installation. Beforehand, students involved stated they would not engage with reporters, administrators or hecklers during the protest.
The installation was in response to the federal investigation into Syracuse University’s handling of sexual assault cases, according to an artist statement posted online and signed by “your neighborhood feminist activists.”
“[W]e stand and sit with our mattresses to symbolize the pain and outrage of living in a university community that does not support sexual assault survivors. Of learning at an institution that lets perpetrators walk free while survivors, activists, and our families must bear the injustice silently. Of chanting ‘it’s on us’ when we know that ‘us’ rarely includes perpetrators and their protectors,” the statement read.
In late August, student newspaper The Daily Orange reported [8] SU was being investigated by the Department of Education for its handling of a sexual assault case, according to documents the paper obtained during Freedom of Information Act request.
Reportedly, a former student (whose personal information was redacted from the documents) filed a Title IX complaint with the department’s Office of Civil Rights, the federal agency which oversees Title IX. The ensuing investigation will determine if students at SU are “subjected to a sexually hostile environment.”
Tuesday's installation on the Quad was organized in response to the federal investigation of Syracuse University for violating Title IX and its handling of sexual assault cases. (Photo: Jensen Stidham)
