Ugh.
A hangman’s noose was found hanging on the door of a black professor’s office at Columbia University Teacher’s College on Tuesday morning, prompting the police to start a hate-crime investigation.
Detectives with the New York Police Department’s hate-crime task force were investigating whether the noose, which was discovered on the fourth floor of the college at about 9:45 a.m., was put there by a rival professor or by a student who was angry over a dispute. Colleagues of the professor identified her as Madonna Constantine, 44, a prominent author, educator and psychologist.
Ms. Constantine is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia and has published several books on race relations, including “Addressing Racism” in 2006 and “Strategies for Building Multicultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings” in 2007.
I don’t think it was hung on her door by accident.
Though I am flabbergasted, I am ashamed to say I am not completely surprised as I’ve encountered a substantial minority of Columbia students who were not ashamed to openly admit that they are racists and saw nothing wrong with stereotyping others. In fact, I am still flummoxed by one particular conversation I had several months ago where the Columbia student not only admitted to having no interest at a friend’s party, but got quite confrontational with me an several others when questioned about his stereotypical assumptions.
Jesus Christ. It’s not going to end, is it?
Though it would be the world’s smallest consolation, I would at least like to think that a student, not another professor, was responsible.
You missed the racist graffiti found in a bathroom at Columbia’s school of international and public affairs a couple weeks ago. Admittedly less scary than the noose, because it’s not directed at a specific person, but not a good datapoint. (Though I have to admit to being impressed by the graffiti-ist’s breadth geographic knowledge — it’s quite unusual for someone of that type to know the capital of Indonesia or that it’s a Muslim majority nation.)
Um, and that would be Dr. Constantine if she’s a psychologist. Nice of the article to ignore her title. I have her cultural mental health book, and it’s wonderful.
Looks like they fixed it to say Dr. now. Still annoying that they started out ignoring it.