More on the Teachers College hate mail that was sent on Monday to several TC professors: the New York Post reported last night that four letters were sent, including one with a picture of a noose and addressed to former professor Madonna Constantine.

Three other letters included pictures of swastikas, and were addressed to Jewish professors. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told the Post, ""We are investigating it as a possible bias crime." (h/t Gothamist)

This afternoon, Teachers College students received an email from the offices of President Susan Furman and Provost Tom James announcing that "earlier today, several faculty members received envelopes containing hate mail."

"We have alerted the Hate Crimes Unit of the New York City Police Department," the email continues, "which is still investigating the October 2007 hate crime incidents.We anticipate that the New York City Police Department will be at Teachers College to investigate this matter. We encourage all members of the community to cooperate fully." Full email after the jump.

Good morning, Columbia, hope you're all set for some more Madonna Constantine updates. Oh good, let's get started. First, according to last night's AP report, Constantine has decided to appeal her termination, claiming that she was fired because of the noose incident and that the plagiarism charges are "baseless."

And speaking of nooses, it's finally time for the Village Voice's sequel to its exciting series on "Knotty Noose Problems". When we last left off, a bunch of people accussed Madonna Constantine of plagiarism, so she made one of them organize some stuff in her office over winter break, which was mean. Meanwhile, Darlene Bailey, VP of Academic Affairs at TC, launched counter-investigations against a women who wanted to look into the allegations against Constantine.

So now that we're all caught up, on to this week's article, and we've once again distilled everything you need to know in reader-friendly bulletpoints.

Today, the Village Voice ran the first part of a billion part article that's something like the definitive account of everything that happened surrounding Madonna Constantine. You might recall October's noose-hanging incident and the whole multiple charges of plagiarism thing, for example. Anyway, we've distilled everything that's new and important in the article in easy-to-digest bullet points below (Spoiler Alert: She plagiarized.)

• "As many as 10 people complained about Constantine over several years, and these sources say the college did little to intervene."
• "Constantine attempted to silence her accusers in the spring of 2007 by sending them letters threatening to sue unless they dropped their claims. She used college stationery and the college mailing account."
• "Despite [former student Karen Cort's] accusation [of plagiarism], Constantine never pursued official sanctions. Instead, as punishment, she ordered Cort to cancel plans for the January break and come to her office. Constantine had her mark each book in her office with the professor's stamp. The shelves in the office held hundreds of books. The job took several days to complete."
• This particular plagiarized text was a second-year research paper written by the aforementioned former student, Karen Cort. Constantine told Cort to list Constantine's name as the primary researcher, despite Cort actually writing and researching the paper. For whatever reason, Cort agreed.
  
  (Read more...)

Conn Corrigan, a J-School grad writing for the New York Sun, is reporting that Madonna Constantine, she of noose-hanging incident and now-confirmed plagiarism fame, is being suspended indefinitely from Teachers College after an investigation concluded that despite her claims to the contrary, she did, in fact, plagiarize the works of two former doctoral candidates and a former colleague. Letter sent to TC faculty and obtained by the Sun after the jump.

Relatively unreliable paper The New York Post is reporting that a grand jury has subpoenaed all Columbia's records on Madonna Constantine, citing financial records and personnel records of particular importance.

The investigation into last year's noose-hanging incident has yet to pinpoint any possible suspects, while the plagiarism investigation remains tightly under wraps, with both Constantine's lawyer and the University's PR firm declining to comment.

The Post also refers to sources who explain that the subpoena could signal "that the investigation is broadening to examine possible links between the teacher, her closest friends and the racially charged incident."

Making the rounds on the TC listserv today, an email from Professor Madonna Constantine. In the email, Constantine maintains her innocence and calls the actions of the administration "premature, vindictive, and mean-spirited." She also indicates that she believes her race played a role in the investigation: "I am left to wonder whether a White faculty member would have been treated in such a publicly disrespectful and disparaging manner," she said.

Constantine also criticizes TC for offering those who work speak against her "indemnification." According to the professor, the investigation is nothing more than a "witch-hunt" and TC attempted to blackmail her into resigning. "There have been attempts by the Teachers College administration to intimidate and blackmail me into leaving the College by insisting that I sign a false statement related to the aforementioned investigation," she said.

Full email after the jump.

As the Spectator reported earlier, Teachers' College professor and hate crime victim Madonna Constantine is currently being investigated for fraud and plagiarism. However, it's not publicly known which of her works are coming under scrutiny.

Bwog attempted to contact Joe Levine, the Executive Director of External Affairs at TC for possible information regarding the case. We were informed by a receptionist that Mr. Levine is "out of the office until Monday" and that "he is the only person authorized to comment on such a sensitive issue."

Bwog also placed called to the law firm of Hughes Hubbard and Reed, the firm that conducted the investigation. The attorney we spoke with was unfamiliar with the case against Professor Constantine and was unable to locate a record of it.

We're continuing our research and will be posting any updates.

- JNW

"Professor Madonna Constantine has been sanctioned by Teachers College for plagiarism, according to a memo obtained by Spectator Tuesday evening. The memo, dated Feb. 18, was hand-delivered to professors on the Office of the President's stationery."

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Columbia events, in the national spotlight. Kind of. The New York Times ran an article about President Bush, who in a conference yesterday about race relations denounced incidents involving nooses and said: "The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank."

The Times mentioned incidents in Jena, La. and our fair Alma Mater as inspiring President Bush to discuss racially-charged incidents and issues of injustice during a Black History Month press conference that is normally used to focus on contributions of black members of society.

Columbia: partially kind of—but not really—changing the way things are done around the White House.

- JNW

There's no fall break when it comes to press conferences. Somehow, Justin Vlasits woke up for it.

It was a chilly morning on the steps of the Arthur Zankel Building of Teacher's College as reporters from every major television and radio station crowded onto the sidewalk to hear TC Jewish Association Co-President Rebecca Pasternak and Professor Elizabeth Midlarsky address the recent anti-Semitic hate crimes, and in particular the swastika painted on Midlarsky's door on October 31.

This was the first time that Columbia affiliates put this most recent hate crime into a larger context of anti-Semitism, including three incidents in which Midlarsky found Holocaust-denying propaganda in her mail box in the weeks leading up to the graffiti as well as anti-Semitic graffiti and drawings in Lewisohn, Lerner, Watt, Butler (twice) and the Law School. Pasternak also said that, in her opinion, this incident was an escalation of the same environment that puts Nadia Abu El-Haj and Joseph Massad up for tenure and invites You-Know-Who to speak. She called for Bollinger, Shapiro and TC President Fuhrman to amend their constitution to read that "Columbia University will not accept anti-Jewish policies, curriculum, faculty, organizations and speakers on our campuses."

The New York Sun is reporting that a swastika was found painted on the door of Elizabeth Midlarsky, a Jewish Teachers College professor who studies the Holocaust. TC President Susan Fuhrman responded to the incident in an email send out to the TC community this morning:

"We feel we've been targeted precisely because Teachers College is and historically has been a center for deep multi-cultural work. We are committed to maintaining that tradition by operating as an open, tolerant community."

Police received a call at 8am and are considering this a possible bias incident.

UPDATE, 12:00 midnight: You think we have problems? George Washington's got seven.

- JNW

From The Guardian, Columbia University will not turn over surveillance video that could potentially aid the police with the case.

Currently, the police have no suspects, though they are looking into a Teacher's College professor who holds "ill will" against Madonna Constantine. Yet, with only one possible lead, the police is also investigating any students who may carry vendettas.

UPDATE: Local CBS reports Columbia has agreed to hand over the tapes.

A crowd of about 100 people marched from Earl Hall to Teachers College around 11:00 PM tonight in response to the incident earlier today involving a hanging noose found tied to the door of an African American professor. Earlier today, WNBC identified the professor as Madonna G. Constantine, who teaches psychology and education.

Protesters yelled several different chants including "We will not be silent!" and "Bollinger's house for justice!" at which point about twenty people broke off from the main crowd on the steps and attempted directing the protest towards Broadway. Organizers quickly hurried people back toward the steps.

The chant changed to "Strike if we must!" Bwog asked a Teachers College student (who prefers not to disclose her name) what exactly the strike was supposed to
accomplish. "We will wear all black tomorrow and we are going to walk out of classes. We're trying to change this racist organization. We're going to the Town Hall meeting tomorrow."

The march occurred after 9:00 PM emergency meeting that filled the main auditorium in Earl Hall. At the meeting, students decided to support a rally at 2:00 PM tomorrow at the 120th St. gates. NBC and CBS were there under mountains of black umbrellas and were pulling students under cover for interviews and pull quotes, one reporter furiously Blackberry-ing the entire affair.