Students applauded in support of Emma Sulkowicz as she carried the 50-pound bed on stage while accepting her diploma.

The German student who Sulkowicz accuses of being a 'serial rapist' who sexually assaulted her and two other women was also at the ceremony.

Paul Nungesser has not been charged with a crime after the district attorney's office found there was a 'lack of reasonable suspicion' and he is now suing the university.

Sulkowicz had vowed to carry the mattress around campus until her alleged attacker was expelled - and refused to shake the hand of President Lee Bollinger as she accepted her diploma, according to the Columbia Spectator's Teo Armus.

The artist earned course credits for carrying the mattress around as part of her senior project entitled, 'Carry that Weight' which was framed as a protest against the university's alleged tolerance of rape and other sexual assault.

'The past year of my life has been really marked by telling people what happened in that most intimate and private space,' Sulkowicz told the Columbia Spectator in September.

'I was raped in my own dorm bed and since then, that space has become fraught for me. I feel like I've carried the weight of what happened there since then.'

Sulkowicz has argued her case was badly mishandled by the school disciplinary panel after she reported in 2013 she was raped in her dorm months before.

She was among 23 students who sued Columbia last year, saying it mishandled sexual assault cases.

She also attended President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in January at the invitation of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

-Daily mail