The plagiarizing Columbia noose prof and the super-secret sanctions
Can Columbia University become any more of an academic embarrassment? I noted last week that in the wake of the still-unsolved noose crime, the race-mongering Columbia noose prof had been sanctioned for two dozen instances of plagiarism.
Not enough to get her fired from one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
Just enough to earn her secret “serious sanctions.”
The NYPost blasts Columbia:
Teachers College claims to be indepen dent of Columbia University - but when it comes to moral cowardice, it’s hard to tell them apart.
To wit, Teachers College revealed last week that an 18-month investigation has determined that Professor Madonna Constantine had lifted the work of a colleague and several students.
Now, plagiarism is a firing offense at Morningside Heights, right?
Amazingly, no.
Teachers announced that it had merely imposed secret “serious sanctions” against Constantine.
If her name seems familiar, it should. She’s the prof upon whose door last fall was found a four-foot noose; the discovery sparked a national uproar, and the case remains unresolved.
The noose and plagiarism charge - which Constantine denies - are related, she said: They are proof of “structural racism” at Teachers College.
That’s absurd, notes department Chairwoman Suniya Luthar: “The students who came with the complaints - most . . . are ethnic minorities, and a number of them are African-American.”
As for the noose - well, let’s just say that the police probe is ongoing.
But what about Teachers College - and, by extension, Columbia?
By retaining Constantine as a tenured professor, and by keeping the alleged “sanctions” applied against her secret, Teachers has demonstrated that it cares as little about its reputation as Columbia cares about its own.
Rick Moran has more on the double secret super sanctions:
“Serious ’secret’ sanctions?” It sounds made up - like the “double secret probation” Delta House was put on in the movie Animal House.
When academic standards are sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, a university loses all respect. In Columbia’s case, that happened a long time ago.
It’s the rule of the mob and the school of Mahmoudapalooza.
Parents of college-age students, if you haven’t crossed Columbia off the list, get out the permanent marker and do it now.
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“Double secret probation”
Rick Moran beat me to it. When I read about the “Secret sanctions” I immediately pictured Dean Wormer sicking a bunch of frat boys on Constantine.
That noose sounds to me like an insurance policy! Insurance against getting fired!
RR - You took the words right out of my mouth!
Dean Wermer would be proud!
Brilliant! You know that they’re on to you, so put up a noose. Now you are a victim of a hate crime and no one would dare fire you.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unavailable for comment.
A: “Yes we can!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW: I don’t know why anyone hasn’t made any satirical comments about Obama using that phrase yet: “Yes We Can”
Bob the Builder for POTUS!!!
‘“Serious ’secret’ sanctions?” It sounds made up - like the “double secret probation” Delta House was put on in the movie Animal House.’
Damn!
Beat me to it!
Columbia University and Teachers College are a flat out disgrace to our country and academia. Shame on them. Michelle is right, these institutions should be shunned by all respectable Americans.
I agree ReagansWingman nailed it.
Have loud mouth Al or JJ said anything about the noose incident yet… I don’t recall them being up in arms about it… guess maybe they too think there’s something a bit shady too? They’d never pass up an opportunity to use the words “hate crime”…..
TFM
I have a son who has been recruited by Columbia and others. I told him that I did not want to influence his decisions about what school to attend but Columbia was not going to be on his list. Thank God, he agreed.
Does Madonna Constantine’s bicycle have a reverse gear? She’ll be backpedalling soon. How long will it be before she blames someone else for her problems?
I heard if she does it again she will be on double secret probation.
Faber College motto:
“Knowledge is Good”.
I have been informed that serious secret sanctions include the following:
1. Subject must cross her heart and hope to die
2. If subject steps on a crack, she breaks her mothers back
3. Subject will be taunted: Liar, Liar, - Pants on fire!
4. No ice cream for 1 week
Sounds like Ms. Constantine was setting up a little red herring to keep herself employed: put a noose on your own door (why her and not any other black profs?), and you have an automatic civil rights claim that you can use to cover up your plagiarism and ineptitude.
She may not be the sharpest knife in drawer academically speaking, but she knows how to play the system. The gutless administration is falling right into line.
I suppose if all else fails, she will proclaim that she is coming out of the closet and is really a Muslim lesbian. “Let them try to fire me now!”
In a REAL college or university, plagiarism would absolutely be a firing offense, particularly repeated offenses. In most cases, it would be a career-ender. I would venture to say that if she were not a preferred minority, she would have been out the door a long time ago, or possibly would never have been let in the door to begin with.
On February 25th, 2008 at 11:20 am, d1carter said:
“I have a son who has been recruited by Columbia and others. I told him that I did not want to influence his decisions about what school to attend but Columbia was not going to be on his list. Thank God, he agreed.”
Good for you.
The Ivies are way, way overrated.
I was a high-school Harry, and a State University Joe.
I went to an Ivy-League medical school, and was singularly UNimpressed.
I had classmates from each of the Ivies, as well as from some other expensive, well known universities and colleges; and I was not in the least impressed by them.
I am not saying that I was better prpeared than they were; however, I AM saying that I was easily AS WELL prepared as they were. No question about that.
The hugest influence on how a student does in college is the student’s attitude, and how much work the student puts into his education (sorry - mother and cousin both English teachers - indefinite pronoun “he”).
The prestigious name school may help the mediocre student get that first position, but after a while, the boss isn’t going to care about one’pedigree. The boss is going to care about what one has done for the boss and the company lately.
The good and outstanding students from the non-name schools are going to do just fine…because of their attitude and drive.
Robert J. Samuelson wrote an article on this, titled “The Worthless Ivy League”, in Newsweek about 10-12 years ago (just before we canceled our subscription).
d1carter, stick to your guns.
For too long, the media and the education industry have been conniving with 17-year-olds to decide how to spend hundreds of thousands of Mom & Dad’s, the tuition payers’, and the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
Can you home school a kid thru college? I’m running out of choices for my kid.
I can’t let go of the Animal House image, the script is running through my head with new characters -
Dr. Fuhrman (president of Teacher’s College): The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.
I’ve got Constantine’s disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.
Based on the numerous plagiarism charges, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of her ripped-off, ticked off students or colleagues didn’t decide to give her a warning about stealing other people’s words.
If she’s on ‘Serious Sanctions’ now, and she screws up again, will she be on ‘Very Serious Sanctions?’
She probably just lost her staff cafeteria meal card privilege.
Good grief. Even Colorado University had the sense to dismiss tenured professor Ward “Big Chief” Churchill.
What kind of message does Columbia send the students, when one of their own professors is guilty of plagarism, and the administration seemingly does nothing?
Shameful.
Did the Germans use rope when the bombed Pearl Harbor..
No rope privileges for you.
All I can think of is Animal House too. Brother Blutto: Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor?
If I can get a copy of the secret serious sanctions, I can use my Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring to unclassify the sanctions and reveal them to the world.
I think I’m going to change my screen name to “Fawn Liebowitz”.
If you’ve seen a more recent picture of her than Michelle is running, you know that would hurt!
Shooter asked, “Can I homeschool my kid thru college”?
Sure, there are many online colleges out there. I know many teachers here in NJ who got their advanced degrees from “Online Colleges and Universities”.
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son”.
-Dean Wermer
This just in - message decoded:
Hang noose in tree nest time.
Al $harpton
Once something is published it becomes public domain in The Subculture. This is a much more enriching scholarly experience and enables those of The Subculture to achieve high scholarly recognition such as PHD degrees and publication requirements. To obstruct this process must be “structural racism”. Columbia understands such racism and it has no place in the house of noose and academia.
I have always thought that I would like to go back to college, just for fun, when I retire. The way things are in these universities/colleges, I think I’d rather do it on-line. Either that or go to Hillsdale College, which I hear is a good place…no federal money.
Yep, Columbia sounds just like Faber University, the big F. U.
Actually, I kind of want to attend Columbia now. Think about it - I’ll just plagiarize my work, and when the school actually tries to expel me, I’ll sue; after all, if a professor can plagiarize, why can’t a student?
I think they are afraid of being sued…who wants to see Columbia’s dirty laundry drug out into the open? Come on show of hands how many? Why not, the Oscars were a flop, this might actually prove to be entertaining. You know these people who work for Columbia don’t get to visit the real world often, and no I don’t mean the one on MTV but that would be entertaining too think of it “The Real World goes to Columbia University” they could get Old Amadenajahdi back, and they could do a segment on how Iran, really doesn’t have any gays, no really it doesn’t none, nada,zip.
Might be fun…… they would have to allow for concealed carry first!
Or you could carry a rope like tenured professors.
When this fraud is finally identified as the one who hung the noose, and I do now believe she probably did it, what will it be?
Triple secret hush-hush probation followed by a promotion?
What a joke.
There, fixed it.
Just like any liberal institution, Columbia could only threaten, in this case hush-hush probation. They are cowed with political correctness! Sigh… (Algore sized-sigh)!
On a lighter note: I can now rag on my Columbia U grad niece.
I know at least one Professor where I teach that carries concealed weapons and no one bothers him about it.
Plagiarize at my University and it will only happen once whether student or staff. The paper will not have hit the bottem of the trash can and you will be out the front gate.
On February 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm, Nugai said:
Actually, I kind of want to attend Columbia now. Think about it - I’ll just plagiarize my work, and when the school actually tries to expel me, I’ll sue; after all, if a professor can plagiarize, why can’t a student?
Brill-effin-iant!
Hey Nugui(#35)….
After you get thrown out of Columbia for cheating(plagarism) and sue, you could also go to the NY Times, I’m sure they would help defend you.
I wonder where Roger Clemens comes down on this issue????
Yes, online colleges are all over the place, and many of the instructors are right conservatives. But cost a lot more than most traditional schools.
TFM
Two words: Affirmative. Action.
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son”. Madonna Constantine is Fat And Appears to be stupid. 2 out of three ain’t bad.
They are afraid to act responsibly. One principal once asked if anyone was “afraid to laugh”. My reply was, “it depends on what the joke is, isn’t it?”
After a thorough investigation, it has been determined that the noose was left there not as a hate crime, as Ms. Constantine alleges, but by John Blutarsky who had used the section of rope to scale the wall during an ill-fated panty raid on what he thought was the girls’ dorm. Startled by a light turning on in one of the offices across the hall, Bluto threw the rope around the door and ran down the fire escape.
Kent Dorfman was unavailable for comment, but Eric Stratton was also seen leaving the staff office building where Ms. Constantine has her office with a stapler and a gray brassiere. A ladder was seen in the bushes and Dean Wormer is still looking into the incident.
If I were working on this issue at CU, I’d try to get some prints off of the rope. You’ll find either Constantine’s or Kerri Dunn’s on it.