--- title: Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims description: Lena Dunham and Emma Sulkowicz have spoken about being raped at college canonical: https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/ author: Naina Bajekal article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-21T13:07:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:17.551Z og:title: Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims og:description: Lena Dunham and Emma Sulkowicz have spoken about being raped at college og:url: https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80b5a0f43e38e33/6988511acd6848b63709ff9f/lena-dunham.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Honoree Lena Dunham speaks onstage at Variety's Power of Women: New York presented by Lifetime at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 24, 2015 in New York City. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims twitter:description: Lena Dunham and Emma Sulkowicz have spoken about being raped at college twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80b5a0f43e38e33/6988511acd6848b63709ff9f/lena-dunham.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Anonymous Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims ## Video: My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League [Watch (HLS stream): My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/o8izpqKu.m3u8) (6:50)  _Published 2014-05-14. In April, 23 Columbia and Barnard students filed a federal Title IX complaint alleging that the University mishandled sexual assault cases_  by [Naina Bajekal](https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/)  ## Naina Bajekal Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME. May 21, 2015 1:07 PM UTC  Honoree Lena Dunham speaks onstage at Variety's Power of Women: New York presented by Lifetime at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 24, 2015 in New York City. Honoree Lena Dunham speaks onstage at Variety's Power of Women: New York presented by Lifetime at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 24, 2015 in New York City.Brian Ach—Getty Images  by [Naina Bajekal](https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/)  ## Naina Bajekal Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME. May 21, 2015 1:07 PM UTC Large posters were hung late Tuesday night near Columbia University accusing actress Lena Dunham and Emma Sulkowicz, a student who graduated from the school this week, of lying about their experiences of sexual assault. Sulkowicz made headlines last September when she began [carrying a mattress](http://time.com/3259455/columbia-student-pledges-to-carry-a-mattress-every-day-till-alleged-rapist-leaves-campus/) around campus as part of her visual arts thesis. The 22-year-old student says she was raped in her own bed by a fellow classmate at the start of her sophomore year in 2012\. She [told](http://time.com/3259455/columbia-student-pledges-to-carry-a-mattress-every-day-till-alleged-rapist-leaves-campus/) TIME the mattress is a symbol of the burden that sexual assault survivors carry around every day, and a protest against the way Columbia handled her rape allegations. (Her alleged attacker is currently suing the school and Sulkowicz’s thesis advisor for making his name public.) Sulkowicz [graduated from Columbia](http://time.com/3888116/graduation-columbia-university-student-mattress-rape/) on Tuesday, carrying the mattress across the stage with the help of friends. Images of posters targeting Sulkowicz began [circulating](https://twitter.com/fakerape/status/600953326860132352) on Twitter around 5 am Wednesday from an account set up that day called @fakerape. > [](https://twitter.com/fakerape/status/600953326860132352) The posters were plastered around the Columbia campus, in the subway at 116th street, and on traffic lights and construction walls around Broadway. The majority of posters show an image of Sulkowicz and her mattress, emblazoned with the words “Pretty Little Liar” and the hashtag #rapehoax. Her name is misspelled. Similar posters also appeared of Lena Dunham, with the caption _“_Big Fat Liar.” In Dunham’s book _Not That Kind of Girl_, released in September 2014, the actress described her experience of sexual assault while she was a student at Oberlin College in Ohio. It led to [controversy](http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/lena-dunham-and-the-challenges-of-memoir/2014/12/10/10db2002-806d-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7%5Fstory.html) after the pseudonym and description she gave of her alleged attacker, ‘Barry’, seemed to point to a real Oberlin student called Barry, who studied there at the same time. In a December [essay](http://www.buzzfeed.com/lenadunham/lena-dunham-why-i-chose-to-speak-out) for Buzzfeed, Dunham explained that she had been “inspired by all the brave women who are now coming forward with their own experiences, despite the many risks associated with speaking out.” On Twitter on Wednesday night, Dunham wished Sulkowicz ‘Happy Graduation’ and expressed her support and gratitude towards the recent graduate. > [](https://twitter.com/lenadunham/status/601193130847805440) The people behind the @fakerape account have not publicly identified themselves, but [told](http://www.amny.com/news/columbia-university-graduation-fakerape-posters-use-emma-sulkowicz-s-image-1.10455736) amNewYork “We want to educate people about fake rape claims & how damaging they are…From UVA to Columbia to UMiami, due process matters.” Blogger Chuck C. Johnson retweeted the photos, but [denied](https://twitter.com/ChuckCJohnson/status/601204732653244416) any involvement in making the posters. According to [images](https://twitter.com/teoarmus/status/601045769806815232/photo/1) posted on Twitter, passersby quickly tore down most of the posters. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/"},"headline":"Anonymous Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims","datePublished":"2015-05-21T13:07:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:45:17.551Z","description":"The television show creator and Emma Sulkowicz have spoken about sexual assault","url":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/","keywords":["Living","Sexual Assault"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80b5a0f43e38e33/6988511acd6848b63709ff9f/lena-dunham.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Naina Bajekal","jobTitle":"Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80b5a0f43e38e33/6988511acd6848b63709ff9f/lena-dunham.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Honoree Lena Dunham speaks onstage at Variety's Power of Women: New York presented by Lifetime at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 24, 2015 in New York City.","caption":"Honoree Lena Dunham speaks onstage at Variety's Power of Women: New York presented by Lifetime at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 24, 2015 in New York City.","creditText":"Brian Ach—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/","name":"Anonymous Posters Attack Lena Dunham and Columbia Student Over Assault Claims"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League","description":"In April, 23 Columbia and Barnard students filed a federal Title IX complaint alleging that the University mishandled sexual assault cases","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/o8izpqKu/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-05-14T14:51:05.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/o8izpqKu.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/","duration":"PT6M50S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3892020/dunham-sulkowicz-campus-rape-columbia-posters/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```