When a school administration failed to handle sexual assault cases the right way, students protested, mattresses in-hand.

Columbia University students gathered outside on their campus with mattresses that were filled with protesting slogans. The initiative began when senior Emily Sulkowicz started carrying her own mattress around campus after the school found the person who raped her not guilty. She began protesting in September and will keep protesting until Columbia expels her assailant.

The crazy thing about this entire protest is that about 28 other students came forward saying the school also dismissed their rape cases and their assailants still walk the halls of Columbia. It takes guts to show up with mattresses and put their Ivy League school, to shame.

The slogan that was used most often and is still being used today is #CarryThatWeight. College campuses across the nation have followed Columbia’s lead and held their own protests with their own slogans.

The protest was engineered by the organization, No Red Tape, an anti-rape group on campus who wear red X’s and stickers and ask passerby to “Imagine a world without rape” with the word “Imagine” crossed out and replaced with “Create”, according to Newsweek.

Seeing hundreds of student come together to support a cause against their own university is a courageous thing to do and hopefully more colleges with the same problems will speak out and no longer remain silent. Talking about rape will normalize it and that’s what people need, for it to be normal to talk about, to get the help they need, to stop rape.