Is Columbia’s “noose” prof a plagiarist?

The AP reports:

A Columbia University professor whose colleagues found a noose hanging from her office doorway will remain on staff despite being sanctioned for plagiarism, school officials said Thursday.

The university's Teachers College announced Wednesday it had imposed "serious sanctions" against Madonna G. Constantine.

The college said a lengthy investigation uncovered numerous instances in which she used others' work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years.

Her lawyer said she had been targeted because of her race and hinted the sanctions and noose incident were linked, claims Teachers College spokeswoman Marcia Horowitz denied.

The inquiry into Constantine was launched in 2006, well before the noose—a symbol of lynchings in the Deep South—was discovered this past October, the school said.
Details of the sanctions were not released, but Horowitz said Constantine was not suspended and will remain a tenured professor.

Horowitz said the case was reviewed by an outside law firm as well as a panel of current and former professors at Teachers College.

Constantine, an education and psychology professor who has written extensively about race, said Wednesday that the accusations and the noose incident are part of efforts to intimidate her because she is black. …

The rest of the story is here.

Race – smace. Is Constantine a plagiarist? That’s the first question I’m asking.

And if she is, then race only enters into it because Constantine doesn’t want to seriously address Columbia’s finding she has plagiarized.

I doubt Columbia made its finding without having before it overwhelming evidence she plagiarized.

In any case, I plan to follow this story, in part to learn whether Columbia has released the material that convinced it Constantine did plagiarize.

For her part, Constantine, if she’s really convinced she didn’t plagiarize, should be presenting her evidence she didn’t, instead of crying “race.”