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.
Remember the 2006 mini-riot at Columbia, when student demonstrators rushed a stage and attacked an anti-illegal immigration speaker?
It was about as egregious an assault on free speech as can be imagined on the campus of a premier university. But Columbia dithered and dallied before – months later – announcing unspecified action (“serious sanctions”?) against some of the students involved.
The punishment was a joke, but – as is now clear – it was typical.
Teachers has as much contempt for the principle of scholastic integrity as Columbia has for free speech.
It’s pathetic, but no surprise.