Over the past year at Columbia University, student Emma Sulkowicz has been carrying a mattress everywhere she goes. Why would a young women in her senior year of college go through all this trouble? To raise awareness of the way universities around the country handle sexual assault.

Earlier in the year, Sulkowicz accused fellow Columbia student Paul Nungesser of rape. When Nungesser was not expelled from campus, Sulkowicz vowed that as her senior visual art thesis, she would carry around the mattress whenever she was on campus until her alleged rapist was no longer there. Throughout the year, she kept true to her promise and attracted mass amounts of media attention- some praising her, and some criticizing her actions and protest. Needless to say, the school did not exactly appreciate the negative attention. Columbia’s graduation and commencement ceremony was held on May 20, 2015. Of course, Sulkowicz and friends carried her mattress onstage to close out a year of her thesis, despite being asked by Columbia officials not to. It isn’t too shocking that university head Lee Bollinger allegedly refused to shake the senior’s hand, turning away as she approached him.

Universities in the U.S. are often known for not handling sexual assault and rape in the right way. According to a Huffington Post study, fewer than one third of campus sexual assault cases result in expulsion. This conclusion is awful and clearly shows that something is wrong with the way these cases are being dealt with. Many cases have gone public and attracted national attention, with the nation being outraged at the result of universities’ decisions. Colleges often report having no evidence of actual rape or assault and blame it on the “he said- she said” manner of many cases like this. However, that is certainly not a reason to let female students live in fear at the institutions that they must call home for four years or more. Emma Sulkowicz took her fate in her own hands and, while her alleged attacker never got the proper punishment he deserved, she did not let her school’s poor decision-making take away her right to speak out and give her rapist the informal punishment that he deserved. Too many girls live in fear because their school does not handle assault cases in an appropriate manner, and this can be stopped if the serious manner of these crimes were realized across colleges and universities everywhere. If that were to happen, then nobody would have to carry a mattress around campus for their senior year. It is such a terrifying thought that when I go college soon, it is possible that there will be no legislation to protect me if I am faced with the same situation as Emma Sulkowicz. This can easily change if more colleges would take serious action and if Congress enacted legislation to prevent colleges from even being allowed to keep sexual offenders on campus.