It’s an irony appropriate to the Trump-era backlash against what his supporters perceived as the far-reaching anti-campus rape policies that took hold during Barack Obama’s presidency. Sulkowicz’s case was emblematic of the movement to use civil rights law to combat campus rape, but in the end the law offered redress to her accused rapist. Nungesser’s suit alleged that Columbia, by enabling Sulkowicz’s project, abetted “gender-based harassment” against him. In 2014, outraged by how Columbia had handled her sexual assault claim against Nungesser, Sulkowicz began lugging a mattress around campus for an entire school year, an iconic piece of protest art that served as her senior thesis. (Says a banner on the group’s website: “Don’t be THAT girl: Embarrassed by a hookup? Angry at a boyfriend? Willing to lie to destroy a life?”)īefore the month was over, Columbia University announced that it had settled a lawsuit brought by Paul Nungesser, who became infamous after being accused of rape by Emma Sulkowicz, a fellow student. (She later apologized for her “flippant” remarks.) The day after Jackson made this claim, Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, met with groups representing students who say they were falsely accused of sexual assault, including the National Coalition for Men Carolinas. Jackson, the top civil rights official in Donald Trump’s Department of Education, told The New York Times that 90 percent of campus rape allegations come from women who regret drunken consensual sex. BLURRED LINES Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus By Vanessa Grigoriadis 332 pp.

Blurred Lines by Vanessa Grigoriadis