The Sordid Truth About Madonna Constantine

Posted by on . 28 comments.

Remember Madonna Constantine? She’s the Columbia University professor who jumped into the headlines last fall, and was lionized by the media and blogs, after a noose was found on her office door in the aftermath of the racist nonsense that went down in Jena.

Well, she’s in the news again, and this time she’s probably not quite as pleased to be in the limelight. Not much adulation and lionizing this time around. A lot of very pathetic posturing. And the most egregious race-card-playing I’ve ever seen in my life.

It seems that at the time the noose was discovered on her door, Constantine was already under investigation for plagiarism by Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. The college has now gone public with its findings:

Teachers College of Columbia University confirmed today that it has sanctioned Professor Madonna Constantine after an internal investigation found numerous instances in which she used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years. The investigation, which began in 2006, was prompted by complaints from students and one former faculty member who said language from materials they wrote was included without attribution in the articles.

The investigation, which was conducted by Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a law firm with a substantial practice representing universities and academic institutions, concluded that Professor Constantine’s explanation for the strikingly similar language was not credible.

The College will not specify the sanctions imposed against Professor Constantine. Teachers College takes academic plagiarism very seriously, and must take appropriate disciplinary action when it is uncovered. Such misconduct is completely at odds with the ethos of our institution, our faculty and our students.

Academics, of course, have a special contempt for plagiarists, and I confess to that bias. Specially contemptible is the senior professor who abuses her position of power to steal from her students.

Tracy Juliao, one of the two former students who said Dr. Constantine used her writings without attribution, said an article by Dr. Constantine and another author in the April 2006 issue of Professional School Counseling included about 20 passages with wording that she believed was “verbatim or near verbatim” to her doctoral thesis.

This is, of course, totally disgusting. But it is also pitifully egregious. Constantine obviously felt that she was untouchable. That she could get away with even this kind of blatant and open plagiarism, lifting verbatim passages from a published thesis.

After the findings of the plagiarism investigation were announced, Constantine apparently decided she may as well go ahead and show everyone exactly what she’s made of (and it certainly isn’t sugar and spice and everything nice):

I am outraged by the President’s memo that summarized the outcomes of a “neutral” investigation that I used the work of others without appropriate attribution. The premature, vindictive, and mean-spirited action taken by the administration to release a statement to the faculty regarding the results of this biased and flawed investigation reflects not only a profound lack of sensitivity and due process, but it also may have sufficiently “poisoned the well” for any fair and objective review of the matter. These actions are historically unprecedented at Teachers College. I am left to wonder whether a White faculty member would have been treated in such a publicly disrespectful and disparaging manner.
[...]
It is my opinion that this investigation, along with other incidents that have happened to me at Teachers College in recent months, point to a conspiracy and witch-hunt by certain current and former members of the Teachers College community. I believe that nothing that has happened to me this year is coincidental, particularly when I reflect upon the hate crime I experienced last semester involving a noose on my office door. As one of only two tenured Black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted.

When I read that Teacher’s College had entrusted the investigation of plagiarism charges to an outside law firm, I was frankly baffled. I’ve never heard of anything like this in my 18 years in higher education, in various universities (and, trust me, I’ve heard of my fair share of very weird stuff). Plagiarism charges are routinely investigated by standing committees. First at the college level, and then, if necessary, at the university level. In unusually complicated cases, the investigation might be handed over to university lawyers. But handing over a plagiarism investigation at the outset to an outside law firm is unprecedented in my experience.

However, having heard from La Constantine, I can now appreciate where the university may have been coming from on this. I’m willing to bet a tidy sum that Constantine has a reputation for playing the race card every chance she gets. Everything that’s ever happened to her in her career that she didn’t much like is, I’ll warrant, the result of a conspiracy and a witch-hunt.

This current conspiracy is bound to be a doozy, whenever La Constantine gets around to fleshing out the details for us. I, for one, am dying to hear how the noose-hanger conspired with Constantine’s graduate students and the Columbia University/Teacher’s College hierarchy to heap all this gratuitous vilification upon her. (For that matter, I really think it’s time Constantine let the world know who hung the noose. She clearly knows, doesn’t she?)

Comments

  1. Jack says:
    March 8, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    I am a PhD candidate at Teachers College with 10 years of college teaching experience under my belt. I have never met any of the characters in this story, but I am shocked she wasn’t fired. If I had been caught doing this once at any of the universities where I have taught, I’m certain I would have been canned. If she wanted to include ideas from a student’s thesis in her own publication, why not include the student as a coauthor for the publication? That’s a common practice at TC.

  2. sarabeth says:
    March 8, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    I fully agree with you. Plagiarism is one the most grievous sins in an academic environment. If you find someone guilty of such systematic plagiarism as Madonna Constantine, I don’t see how you have any other choice but to fire them.

    Other stories I have read suggest that the University administration bent over backwards first not to investigate her, and then not to punish her too harshly. It seems they were forced (by outraged academics within the university) to take the limited action they took against her.

  3. Anoymous says:
    June 24, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    It seems each of the responses so far have not read all of the available information closely. The problem here is that the evidence that Prof. Constantine’s lawyer provided was not taken into serious consideration before a judgment was rendered which arguabley prompted a biased judgement. Why not consider all of the evidence equally? What’s the harm? It could only strengthen your the institution’s case.. In any event, I really think everyone needs to step back and take a wait and see approach. To just jump to conclusions and villify her before all of the details are exposed would be a serious injustice. Moreover, as a former alumni of TC, I can attest to the fact there was definitley something fowl in that drinking water, and it was not until recently (late 90′s early 2000) that some major changes were underway. In fact, it was not until President’s Levin’s last couple of years as president of the college that they established a Office of Diversity, despite years of complaints by minority staff, students, and faculty of racial insensitivity and low morale. So, let’s pause and let the true wheels of justice complete itself. Columbia has clearly not been immune to racial or sexist intolerance. Although not as extensive as some, it does have a track record, and we cannot dismiss this as a possible reality, just because its “Columbia.”

  4. sarabeth says:
    June 24, 2008 at 1:32 pm

    Each of the responses so far?

    This is a generic “Friends of Constantine” thing you’re posting all over the internet, isn’t it, and you’re too lazy to even adapt it to each individual post you’re appending it to?

    The evidence so far, including everything Constantine and her lawyer have said on her behalf, speaks for itself.

    Plagiarism is a pathetically simple crime to prove. When a university investigation determines there was systematic plagiarism, there really isn’t any room to spin that finding. Which is why Constantine apparently decided that her only option was to play the race card.

    If you genuinely buy into her self-serving nonsense and wild ravings, you are certainly to be pitied. But I doubt very much that you are the disinterested onlooker you pretend to be.

  5. sarabeth says:
    June 24, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    For the record, I also refuse to believe that anyone who attended Teacher’s College at Columbia could commit so any errors in one short paragraph, including the priceless “former alumni”.

  6. dougcu2 says:
    June 25, 2008 at 8:14 am

    My question is who is this person “anonymous” and why can’t you say your name?

  7. sarabeth says:
    June 25, 2008 at 8:55 am

    actually, you can make up any old name. and what he made up was “anoymous”. (It’s that Teacher’s College education, I’m sure)

  8. Professor Tracey says:
    June 25, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    First, it’s Dr. Madonna Constantine. I find your elimination of her title troubling and disrespectful.
    You can be critical without diminishing people. It’s just like when people called Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Clinton instead of Senator Clinton, it’s trying to diminish her status.

    Two, I have the same problem with your posting as I have with many others regarding this case. Sounds like you are more upset about her activism than her scholarship woes. One should have nothing to do with the other. No academic should be targeted because of their activism.

    Three, you clearly don’t know much about academia. It is the worse system in the world in terms of using other people’s work improperly and illegally. It happens all the time. Some schools would be missing quite a few professors if we really started cracking down on this issue. And some mighty big names would go down.

    Doris Kerns Goodwin is still writing books after getting caught and she was not fired. Joseph Ellis lied in his classroom for years about his Vietnam status and he’s still teaching at the same school. Two famous professors at Harvard have just been caught copying and no one is firing them.

    Plagiarism is a major problem in academia from administrators to students. Students doing all the research, then only the senior professor’s name on the final results is rampant and any student that raises an objection is putting their career at risk.

    Where I agree with you completely is if Dr. Constantine got caught CHEATING, she deserves to be fired. My concern is clearly her personal politics are playing a role in this mess and that is troubling.

    Academia has failed repeatedly to be consistent on this issue. Fine, fire Dr. Constantine, but fire everyone else that commits the same act and unfortunately, there are more white professors who have plagiarized who are still sitting at their jobs right now.

    If you maintain the same standards for everyone then the race card plays no role at all. When you don’t you get stuff like Dr. Constantine’s case.

  9. sarabeth says:
    June 25, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Funny how the Constantine Defense Brigade is suddenly out in full force, and pouncing on this four-month old post. Almost like somebody put out the word somewhere.

    First, it’s Dr. Madonna Constantine. I find your elimination of her title troubling and disrespectful.

    Can it, please. I have a Ph.D., and I was a university professor for 18 years. I find academics who insist on being called Dr. XYZ pompous. I find people who insist on third-party academics being called Dr. XYZ ludicrous.

    Sounds like you are more upset about her activism than her scholarship woes.

    At this risk of troubling you again, I call bullshit. You may find this even more troubling: I challenge you to substantiate your statement. Where in my post do I sound upset about what you are pleased to call her activism?

    Three, you clearly don’t know much about academia.

    Clearly not. I only know it intimately from the inside for 18 years.

    The rest of your comment is one crazy mixture of baloney, bullshit and misconception. (The fact that you do it with the supreme conviction that your assumptions are facts makes it truly funny.)

    No self-respecting academic in a self-respecting institution of higher learning would minimize plagiarism the way you do. And the fact of the matter, dear professor, is that Constantine did indeed get caught cheating. That was the verdict of a very long, careful and very politically correct investigation.

    And just for the record, in case anyone is buying the Constantine Defense Brigade propaganda, many of Constantine’s accusers are themselves women of color, so all this blather about Constantine being hounded with charges of plagiarism due to racism is absolutely dishonest hogwash.

  10. matt says:
    June 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    >Three, you clearly don’t know much about academia.

    hahahhaha

  11. Professor Tracey says:
    June 25, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    If you chose not be addressed as Dr. that’s your choice, you don’t decide for other academics. I worked hard for my title and my “pompous” self will expect people with good manners and a sense of respect to use the title that I earned. My choice! You don’t have to like it!

    Constantine Defense Brigade”? What in the hell are you talking about? So, if someone disagrees with your hysterical and over-the-top rantings, they are part of some conspiracy? I found your dumb ass post with a simple Google search when I was doing research on this topic, I didn’t even see the date.

    I did not minimize plagiarism. I pointed out the clear contradictions in academia in dealing with the topic. You were clearly too busy ranting and cussing to address that. Funny that. If you really were professor you know what I said was true. And if you really did teach, thank god you are no longer teaching, you are a truly bitter person!

    I’m wondering if Dr. Constantine did something personal to you because you are awfully wound up about someone you don’t know.

    Excuse me for thinking you were a rational person willing to engage in a discussion. I was wrong, you’re crackers! You should put up a disclaimer, make comments only if you agree with the crazy-ass bitter blogger posting!

  12. sarabeth says:
    June 25, 2008 at 8:26 pm

    If you chose not be addressed as Dr. that’s your choice, you don’t decide for other academics.

    So am I allowed to decide for myself how I address other people, or do you get to decide how everyone should address everyone else?

    You seem to be awfully wound up yourself over comments by a blogger you don’t know at all, at some random site you just stumbled upon. Especially a blogger you think is so full of shit.

    When you say “all the cussing”, presumably you mean the word “bullshit”, used twice? What a pottymouth I am, indeed!

    (Should someone who’s so sensitive about language that you take umbrage at “bullshit”, use words like “hell” and “dumb ass” and “crazy-ass “? Didn’t you just lower yourself to my guttersnipe level?)

    I’m wondering if Dr. Constantine did something personal to you because you are awfully wound up about someone you don’t know.

    At least you don’t know it for sure, like you knew clearly that I knew nothing about academia. And why don’t you just can all that “if you really were professor” garbage? My bio has been up on this blog for years. A careful researcher such as yourself might have taken the trouble to acquaint herself with some basic facts, instead of making herself look utterly foolish (twice over now).

    You really are some piece of work. You come in here, sanctimonious as all hell, spouting garbage one-two-three. And then you’re all bent out of shape when I take offense?

    I would suggest you seek medical help immediately, you have hypocritical self-righteous judgementality oozing out of every pore.

    And I notice that, with great intellectual honesty, you declined to substantiate the statement I had challenged you to substantiate. Still do.

  13. Mr Truth says:
    June 26, 2008 at 11:48 am

    ‘ Those Who Know Do Not Talk ;Those Who Talk Do Not Know”………. Lao tz

    I Am Talking………… So I Do Not Know… me

    You Know ?

  14. Inkberrow says:
    August 15, 2008 at 9:24 am

    Professor Tracey—your suggestion that Constantine critics disapprove who she is rather than what’s she’s done is specious at best. For Dr. Constantine, as with Cornel West, her activism IS her scholarship, and vice versa. By now it’s pretty clear that Constantine’s status and conduct as a professional academic is indivisible from her status and conduct as a professional identity-politics victim.

    You rather sanctimoniously opine that Constantine critics are suspiciously exercised over this imbroglio, as if she’d “done something personal” to them. Well, Professor, she has, to every American with eyes to see. She’s repeatedly trampled without compunction upon academic and intellectual integrity, and worse still, she’s demeaned the courage and sacrifice of the very people she so ignobly claims to speak for—actual victims of racial prejudice.

  15. Dave says:
    September 12, 2008 at 11:16 pm

    “Professor” Tracey:

    First: It is pompous to expect to be addressed as “Doctor.” Who cares about your lable, you are who you are, a title doesn’t make any difference.
    Second: It is horrible of the Professor to put up a noose and claim someone else did in order to deflect charges of plagiarism (you know she did). Her job is self-fulfilling anyway. There has to be racial problems for her to stay in her job, so of course she’s going to find racial problems.
    Third: You wrote: “It is the worse system in the world.” Don’t you mean ‘worst?’ Are you really a professor?
    Fourth: You wrote “it happens all the time” when referring to plagiarism. Does that mean that it’s okay just because everybody else does it?
    Fifth: You also wrote “Where I agree with you completely is if Dr. Constantine got caught CHEATING.” Don’t you mean: Dr. Constantine WAS caught cheating? Where is your grammar? Maybe you should be fired also. Perhaps you should stage a racist action against yourself in an attempt to save your job.
    Sixth: What do you mean by your comment “you’re crackers?” Is that a racial comment directed towards European-Americans.
    Seventh: You are missing some hyphens in your comments.
    Eighth: You continue to spread the legacy of victimization of blacks in America and you take away from those blacks that have achieved great things in this great country. You are doing nothing but bringing yourself down and taking them with you. Shame on you for having a lack of self-responsibility.

  16. Laurence says:
    November 2, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    I will never refer to her as Doctor. She doesn’t deserve it. She s a cheater and a liar and a whiner. She disrespects every black person she encounters merely with her presence.

  17. Lance says:
    December 4, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Thank you dear bloggers. I was stumbling through the internet looking for information regarding pompous use of the title “Doctor” when I landed on this topic.
    I was “cracking” up while reading “Profesor” Tracey defend “former alumni” Anoymous’s “scholarship woes”.

  18. Esther says:
    March 20, 2009 at 9:57 am

    So why in March 2009 is her web page still up on on TC’s website????
    http://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=mc816

  19. James says:
    April 1, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    I just checked-it is still up on the TC website-perhaps they still employ and/or endorse this person!

  20. Dave M says:
    April 24, 2009 at 7:03 am

    I stumbled upon this website through overlawyered.com and want to thank you all (with the exception of “Professor Tracey”, of course) for the deliciously entertaining (and completely true) comments about this racist plagiarist Madonna Constantine. Thank you!

    Also, I find it very interesting that clicking on “Professor Tracey’s underlined name in this post name you to a website called Aunt Jemima’s Revenge. Very telling, indeed…

  21. Dave M says:
    April 24, 2009 at 7:23 am

    Edited: I stumbled upon this website through overlawyered.com and want to thank you all (with the exception of “Professor Tracey”, of course) for the deliciously entertaining (and completely true) comments about this racist plagiarist Madonna Constantine. Thank you!

    Also, I find it very interesting that clicking on “Professor Tracey’s” underlined name in this post takes you to a website called Aunt Jemima’s Revenge. Very telling, indeed…

    It seems you cannot successfully edit your post within the message box. For that, I apologize.

  22. anonymous says:
    October 16, 2009 at 10:38 pm

    (deleted long off-topic rant, a diatribe against Teacher’s College which has nothing to do with this post)

  23. Nietzschean says:
    October 22, 2009 at 8:30 am

    Can anyone imagine an entity that would be more indulgent of a black female academic than the Columbia University Teacher’s College? The motto at that place probably contains an apology for slavery. P.S. I’ll bet the noose incident was a hoax as well. Now the university doesn’t have to admit it.

  24. Nicholas Stix says:
    November 12, 2009 at 1:13 am

    Tracey, even if you really were a professor, no one would be obliged to address you by that title, except for your students.

    As an undergraduate, I initially called my profs, “Prof. So-and-So,” but as I got friendlier with some, called them by their first names. At my first college, a septuagenarian named Eve, who was the unofficial school mascot, used to sit in on classes. She once asked our philosophy prof, the late Richard Magagna, who had a Ph.D. and was a Methodist minister, “Should we call you ‘Professor,’ ‘Doctor,’ or ‘Father’”? Magagna replied, “‘Mister’ is always correct.”

    Unfortunately, Magagna’s was a minority opinion.

    When I studied at the University of Tuebingen, the rule was to call professors, “Mr.” (“Herr”). My philosophy teacher, Hans Joachim-Kramer, was and is the world’s greatest living scholar of Greek philosophy, yet he is “Herr Kraemer.”

    When I taught college for six-and-a-half years, the only time I called anyone by a title, was my boss, “Dr. So-and-So.” And though she was racist, pompous, and unprofessional, because she was my boss, it didn’t bother me to call her by her title. But I never called any colleagues, “Professor” or “Doctor.” They called me by my first name, and so I responded in kind. They didn’t like it, and one once even blanched, when I showed him the same familiarity he had just shown me, but they had to take it. I wasn’t their student.

    (Once I asked a colleague with whom I had previously had—with the intercession of one of the department secretaries—safe, friendly conversations about decongestants, but without being formally introduced, if he was “John Doe,” who was slated to sit in on an evaluation conference. He responded, “I’m Dr. John Doe,” so I ignored his remark, and avoided addressing him by name.)

    P.S. Until today, I wasn’t aware of any “activism” on Constantine’s part. Or is that merely a euphemism for her running around, calling white people “racists”?

    P.P.S. Why is your blog entitled, “1115.org”? My wife used to be in (SEIU?) union local 1115, and when I saw your entry in Google, I came over to see what the local had to say about this issue.

  25. Friend says:
    November 12, 2009 at 7:48 am

    Hello Folks,

    I am a professor. I happened to know Dr. Constantine. I have only had my Ph.D., for a few years but I have been teaching for a seven years. When I heard about the allegations of plagiarism against her I was sadden, disappointed, and confused. It’s difficult not to be biased in favor of Dr. Constantine because I looked up to her while I was in graduate school. Dr. Constantine and her colleagues were the motivating support I needed in order to move through my doctoral program. While plagiarism can happen by honest mistake to anyone it’s certainly the most effective way for a scholar or professor to dampen their respectability. If I found myself in that situation (god forbid) the first thing I would do is find the student, take her with me to the provost and apologize to both of them for what appeared to be plagiarism even if I were not guilty of intentionally doing it. I would feel a strong need to honor that student as a person and respect the institution because my name is attached to both of them in ways that sustain my livelihood. Perhaps my recent status a graduate student is guiding my opinion. I know that students place a great deal of trust in me now as their professor and dissertation chair and it really is a privilege for me. I believe it would break their hearts to think that I would intentionally plagiarize their work. As a result, I would simply make a public apology in the form of a letter and personally to the student and the university. I would try to get that students work published under her name properly and publish some original work as soon as possible.
    The politics of the race issue with Dr. Constantine is personal and I cannot comment on that because I do not have the facts. I think we all know that racial politics in America is real, embarrassing, and one of the most cowardice parts of the American personality. I pray that Dr. Constantine and the alleged victim are able to recover from this and move onward.

  26. Stack says:
    November 12, 2009 at 7:54 am

    I am a professor. I happened to know Dr. Constantine. I have only had my Ph.D., for a few years but I have been teaching for a seven years. When I heard about the allegations of plagiarism against her I was sadden, disappointed, and confused. It’s difficult not to be biased in favor of Dr. Constantine because I looked up to her while I was in graduate school. Dr. Constantine and her colleagues were the motivating support I needed in order to move through my doctoral program. While plagiarism can happen by honest mistake to anyone it’s certainly the most effective way for a scholar or professor to dampen their respectability. If I found myself in that situation (god forbid) the first thing I would do is find the student, take her with me to the provost and apologize to both of them for what appeared to be plagiarism even if I were not guilty of intentionally doing it. I would feel a strong need to honor that student as a person and respect the institution because my name is attached to both of them in ways that sustain my livelihood. Perhaps my recent status a graduate student is guiding my opinion. I know that students place a great deal of trust in me now as their professor and dissertation chair and it really is a privilege for me. I believe it would break their hearts to think that I would intentionally plagiarize their work. As a result, I would simply make a public apology in the form of a letter and personally to the student and the university. I would try to get that students work published under her name properly and publish some original work as soon as possible.
    The politics of the race issue with Dr. Constantine is personal and I cannot comment on that because I do not have the facts. I think we all know that racial politics in America is real, embarrassing, and one of the most cowardice parts of the American personality. I pray that Dr. Constantine and the alleged victim are able to recover from this and move onward.

  27. sarabeth says:
    November 12, 2009 at 8:16 am

    So the implication is that you went to graduate school at Columbia? And you are unable to write grammatically correct English? For example:
    — I happened to know Dr. Constantine.
    — When I heard about the allegations of plagiarism against her I was sadden, disappointed, and confused.
    — I think we all know that racial politics in America is real, embarrassing, and one of the most cowardice parts of the American personality.

    I don’t know what it is about Madonna Constantine that inspires such behavior, but we’ve had people come in here and pull this stunt before.

  28. Ricardo says:
    November 28, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    I’m not in academia; I’m a writer doing research into the Constantine debacle as a matter of personal interest and possible inspiration.

    I’m intimately familiar with the case and very aware that Constantine is guilty as charged. It’s not really a point worth debating.

    What catches my interest about this thread are the strong emotions this matter has provoked. Beyond its academic implications, the violation of a code of conduct almost sacred in its nature, there seems to be a lot of anger about this particular crime (I will provide citations to substantiate that claim if asked, though I’m painfully ignorant of MLA format for blog comments). Is it the high visibility of the case? Is it the exploitation of race on the part of Professor Constantine? Is it the betrayal of her students?

    I am genuinely curious. I’m not attempting to bait anyone. Beyond the initial post, which is more or less levelheaded in its criticism (though the speculation that Constantine must have a reputation for playing the race card seems unnecessary), the comment section seems positively vitriolic on both sides of the matter. I am particularly interested in what is being conspiratorially referred to as the “Constantine Defense Brigade” and the allusions to repeated postings by her supporters (which I presume have been deleted, as it seems only one remains).

    I am aware that this thread has been inactive for over a year; my apologies. Also, I am sure I am guilty of more than a few typos in writing this, so I apologize in advance. On that note, I’m compelled to point out that an attack on someone’s grammar is perhaps one of the lowest form of argument possible. It also has a habit of biting one in the ass, as can be seen in the posting of June 24th, 2008: “I also refuse to believe that anyone who attended Teacher’s College at Columbia could commit so any errors in one short paragraph.”

    I am certain “many” errors was intended, but we are none of us Shakespeare.

    Thank you kindly.