In The Face Of Turmoil By Bernard Waber

In the Face of Turmoil

"Courage is a blade of grass breaking through the icy snow” Bernard Waber. Courage means a variety of things depending on who you talk to. It could mean doing something you're afraid of to one person, while meaning completing a task in the face of problems, to another. Courage is a fluid term, it changes constantly and quickly. No one was born with the inability to have courage. Courage can be taught through life lessons and difficult situations. Courage passes from one person to another. It is spread like an infection when someone watches a display of courage. Emma Sulkowicz, a senior at the University of Colombia, has reinvented the word Courage by carrying her mattress around campus until her rapist is expelled.

In the beginning of her ordeal she was afraid to say something, that is until others reached out to her. Emma was not the only student to report the rapist for sexual assault, and he still hasn’t been punished. Emma decided that she was tired of waiting for her rapist to be brought to justice, in a world that caters to men over women, and took the matter into her own nimble fingers. Not only was she pushed to the side by campus board and forced to wait seven months for her trial, she was forced to speak to incompetent panelists who couldn’t understand the concept in their simple minds. She should have at least been provided panelists with an IQ above 80 in order to be fair. She was given no chance because one can’t win a case with a jury that doesn’t understand the law. In addition to being brushed off by the jury and the university, she was forced to listen to her rapist lie and make up ludacris facts about how

She made the decision to call her senior project “Carry that weight”. She was determined to carry her mattress around campus to raise awareness for rape and sexual assault victims until her rapist was expelled or punished by law. The requirements on her senior thesis states she isn’t allowed to ask for help but she can accept it if it’s offered. Many students have deemed her cause important and have gone out of their way to help her get to class and to carry her mattress. Her persistence has led to many students calling for the case to be reopened and her rapist be reinvestigated, rightfully so. She has been featured on several magazine covers, including Time Magazine. She also had a direct affect on the California and New York Governors signing a law that states college campuses must have an “affirmative consent” law. The Affirmative Consent Law states that if a student didn’t say “yes” to having intercourse and comes to the authorities and can prove she didn’t say yes to the sexual act then it’s rape. The terms of the consent state that it must be “conscious” and “voluntary”, which outlaws having sex with someone far too intoxicated to say