Oct 30, 2014 10:04 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

"Carry That Weight" is a Columbia University visual arts student's senior thesis project, but it has now transformed into a global stand against sexual assault on college campuses.

According to the Huffington Post, Columbia students emulated Emma Sulkowicz's project last month in a public demonstration by bringing out their mattresses. Sulkowicz has vowed to carry her mattress everywhere she goes on campus until the person she says raped her is removed from the school or leaves.

Carrying That Weight Together (CTWT) organized "a National Day of Action" Wednesday by encouraging anyone to carry their mattress or a pillow to show solidarity with Sulkowicz. The movement is not just for survivors and activists, but anyone who feels strongly that more schools need to revamp their sexual assault policies and practices.

For her project, Sulkowicz is only allow to accept help carrying her mattress and cannot ask for it. She recently wrote in an op-ed for the Columbia Spectator advising CTWT supporters against carrying a pillow to avoid looking "like they came from a slumber party."

CTWT apparently received support from students at Stanford, Central European University in Budapest and more from around the world.

Columbia is one of more than 80 U.S. schools under investigation for alleged Title IX violations for mishandling students' sexual assault cases. Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, and Susan Goldberg, a law professor and special adviser to Bollinger, published a piece in the New Republic, stating that while the school has made changes, "more work remains to be done."

"We understand that reports about these cases in the media can be deeply distressing, and our hearts go out to any students who feel they have been mistreated," the university said in a statement Wednesday. "Columbia embraces its responsibility to be a leader in preventing sexual assault and other gender-based misconduct anywhere it may occur, with a special duty to protect the safety and well-being of our own students. Student activism here and around the nation has played an important role in encouraging these efforts."

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