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.

  • The College hired an outside firm to investigate the plagiarism and such, and as the results of the investigation were on the cusp of being announced, Constantine discovered a noose hanging on her door
  • TC President Susan Fuhrman gave a conference in response to the incident in which she called MC “distinguished”, but according to the Voice, Fuhrman would have definitely known about plagiarism investigation
  • You’ll remember from the last installment, a TC professor named Suniya Luthar came to Dean Bailey about investigation Constantine. Bailey responded by investigating Luthar. People suspected that Luthar might have had a grudge against Constantine and Co., so her name was initially tossed around as a possible suspect.
  • Fuhrman publically defended Luthar, but it wasn’t enough to stop rumors that she was the noose-hanger.
  • Investigators issued a subpoena for the College to hand over the security tapes, but there weren’t any cameras near MC’s office anyway.
  • Then in November, the Hate Crime Squad (NYPD’s term, not ours) installed “secret” videocameras by Constantine’s office, in attempts to catch the noose-hanger if he or she chose to strike again. The “secret” cameras turned out to be so obvious that they were distracting, and TC professors started complaining about their presence.
  • Constantine sent out a faculty-wide email about the cameras, claiming that they were part of a “set-up.”
  • The plagiarism investigation was put on hold for four months after the noose incident, but when its results were finally released in February, it found Constantine had taken from the works of her former students.
  • “The school hasn’t disclosed what that penalty [for plagiarizing] might be, but sources say it was just a letter of reprimand.”
  • Constantine sent out another email in which she famously claimed, “I am left to wonder whether a White faculty member would have been treated in such a publicly disrespectful and disparaging manner.”
  • Suniya Luther sent an email responding to Constantine’s charges of racism, saying that TC had given MC “inordinately high protection and support.”
  • “Fuhrman also told the faculty that she had offered Constantine a severance package, and asked her to ‘take responsibility,’ but she turned it down.”