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POLS: PUT HATERS IN A NOOSE-GOW

Whoever hung a noose outside the office of a Columbia University professor will not face jail time, thanks to a legal loophole that angry lawmakers yesterday said must be closed immediately.

The current statute on felony aggravated harassment was amended in 2006 to include two symbols of hate: swastikas and burning crosses. Other racist symbols remain violations that carry lesser penalties and can’t be prosecuted unless they’re witnessed by a member of law enforcement.

“It’s the same as drinking a beer in public,” state Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) said while holding up a noose at a news conference on the steps of Teachers College, where one was found Tuesday hanging on the office door of black professor Madonna Constantine.

Adams, Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) and state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) plan to introduce legislation today that would add nooses to the existing state law.

“The bill is a message to evil racists out there that we won’t tolerate this,” Hikind said.

Police have not named any suspects in the noose incident, although investigators continue to pour over hours of surveillance video that the school refused to turn over until it was subpoenaed by the NYPD.

Two days after the noose turned up, a caricature of a yarmulke-wearing man and a swastika was found in a Columbia bathroom.

Perkins said that, like a swastika, “A noose is a death threat and a promise that given the opportunity, a murder will be committed.”

If the bigot is discovered, Constantine’s only hope for justice would be in civil court.

Adams brought a noose to yesterday’s news conference that he made at home with the help of an instructional Web site.

“It’s not a simple knot to make,” he said. “There’s a skill in it. You have to be disciplined.”

The Columbia noose is one of three to pop up in the New York area since the racially charged Jena 6 case in Louisiana – which included a noose hanging from a schoolyard tree – began drawing national attention.

“I think the Jena 6 was the fertilizer of weeds that were already growing,” Adams said.

Hikind said there are far more racist acts being committed than the few cases that have gotten media attention.

“You don’t find out about every one,” he said.

Additional reporting by Larry Celona