Professor Sues To Get Job Back

Fired Columbia Teachers College professor Madonna Constantine is filing a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court to get her job back. She's claiming that the firing was racially motivated.

She was fired over charges of plagiarism, but is best known for an incident where someone placed a noose on her office door. No one has been charged in that criminal act, and investigators are no closer to determining who committed the crime than they were when it happened.

Noose-ance

Disgraced professor Madonna Constantine of Columbia University continues to play games with her status, though she has backed off her claims of racism.

"So much of it is political, it is sick," said Madonna Constantine. "Let them make it a racial issue. It's all about alliances."

"All of this is very fishy," the ejected educator said. "I don't know what to think in terms of motivation. I think the climate is political."

Constantine, a tenured professor of psychology and education with a focus on racial issues, was fired on June 12 after an outside panel ruled she had plagiarized other work in her articles.

At the time, Constantine said she felt "systematically targeted."

"As one of the only two tenured black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted," she said.

The firing caps off a rocky series of events at the school that came to a head last October when Constantine said she discovered the noose dangling from the handle of her office door as the school's investigation raged. Police opened a criminal probe but have yet to identify a suspect.

But Constantine insisted yesterday she was innocent - and that it was she who had been plagiarized.

Her attorney, Paul Giacomo, displayed a briefing in which he claimed that in all the instances she was accused of copying the ideas of others, her work had actually appeared first.

"They are trying to whitewash and get rid of this toxic situation," Giacomo said. "They were trying to eliminate the situation by eliminating Dr. Constantine."

He said his client had until July 15 to decide whether she would appeal the firing to a faculty committee.

If she does not, he said, she will be paid through the end of the year. If Constantine does appeal, she will no longer be paid.

A lengthy examination of her academic record revealed multiple instances of plagiarism, which was grounds for her suspension in anticipation of being fired from the University's Teachers College.

The toxic situation is a professor whose academic history is replete with examples of academic misconduct, and grandstanding will not make the stink disappear.

Indeed, the NYPD is still investigating the incident involving the hanging of a noose on Constantine's door. Considering that the incident nearly coincides with the university's investigation into her academic misconduct, one may suspect that it was nothing more than a hoax to divert attention from Constantine's own issues. If that was indeed the case, Constantine's lucky just to get fired.

Columbia University Suspends Prof Who Made Noose Claim

Professor Madonna Constantine made the news in October 2007 for claiming that someone stuck a noose on her door. That incident remains unsolved, but a closer look at Constantine's academic record showed that she engaged in repeated examples of plagiarism.

After a lengthy examination, she's been put on indefinite suspension by the Teachers College at Columbia University.

In a letter sent out today to Teachers College faculty, the college president, Susan Fuhrman, and dean, Tom James, said the faculty advisory committee had rejected Ms. Constantine's appeal of the plagiarism charges. They said Ms. Constantine was suspended as of today, but that she is entitled to appeal the decision or request a hearing before the faculty executive committee.

The letter, obtained by The New York Sun from a Teachers College source, said the faculty advisory committee upheld an 18-month investigation by a Manhattan law firm, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, which found that Ms. Constantine had plagiarized two dozen times works of two former doctoral students and a former colleague.

I'm still wondering whether we will learn whether the noose incident was nothing more than a hoax and/or ploy to distract attention from her concerns over her academic misconduct.

Columbia University Professors Deny Iran Trip Report

Columbia University professors have denied a report in an Iranian propaganda outlet that a group was going to travel to Tehran to apologize to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Lee Bollinger's treatment during Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University last year.

A report in the semi-official Iranian news agency, Mehr, claims that a delegation of professors from Columbia University are planning a trip to Tehran to apologize to President Ahmadinejad for critical remarks made by Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, when Mr. Ahmadinejad visited Morningside Heights last year.

The report, which could not be confirmed and did not name any professors, said "the main goal of the visit is to meet the Iranian president and officially apologize to him."

Several Columbia professors yesterday denied the report.

The Middle East Institute's Gary Sick said there was no truth to the report. History Professor Richard Bulliet said he had not heard of it. "There is not intention on the part of the Columbia administration to authorize a delegation."