Bad 'Noose' For Columbia Professor: Busted for Plagiarism

Ever since the original complaint of the alleged noose incident, I suspected this Madonna Constantine was a total fraud.

Now that she's been busted for plagiarism, my suspicions have been confirmed.

The black Columbia University professor who last fall found a hangman's noose pinned to her office door plagiarized the work of another faculty member and two students, according to a school investigation released yesterday.

The plagiarism probe was already under way last year when a 4-foot twine noose was discovered on the door of psychology and education professor Madonna Constantine's office, officials at the university's Teachers College said.

They said they disciplined Constantine for stealing other people's work for articles she published in academic journals.

They cited two dozen instances of plagiarism over the past five years that were substantiated in an 18-month investigation by a Manhattan law firm.

Teachers College spokesman Joe Levine would not say how Constantine was punished, but college officials said her position is secure.

Now how on earth can someone have two dozen incidents of plagiarism against them and still have a job?

Only at Columbia.

Well, I suspect they're deathly afraid of the dreaded R word.

In a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg News Service yesterday, Constantine said she was the victim of a racist conspiracy.

The school accused her of plagiarism because of the "structural racism that pervades this institution," she charged. "As one of only two tenured black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted."

Constantine said she would appeal to a faculty committee.

If there were "structural racism" as this fraud alleges, she never would have been hired.

Meanwhile, the noose incident has been completely swept under the rug, and the longer they drag that out, the more I'll believe she put it there herself.

Whatever happened to the videotapes?

Cops have not been able to identify a suspect in the noose incident. They have not ruled out people close to Constantine or others who might have had an ax to grind with her.

After the October incident, cops were rebuffed - by Constantine herself - in their efforts to catch the person behind the alleged hate crime.

The professor was one of several faculty members who objected to the idea of posting surveillance cameras in her hallway, according to sources familiar with the campus investigation.

Previously.

Michelle Malkin has more.