Noose Incident Reinvigorates NYC Prof

Professor Madonna Constantine speaks at a protest rally at Teachers College at Columbia University, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007, in New York, one day after a hangman's noose was discovered on her office door at the college. Authorities on Wednesday were looking into whether a noose hanging from the door of a black professor at Columbia University was the work of disgruntled students or even a fellow professor, an incident the university's president described as an assault on everyone at the prestigious school. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff) (Diane Bondareff - AP)

NEW YORK -- The noose found dangling from professor Madonna Constantine's office door was a deeply personal insult to the Columbia University scholar devoted to improving race relations.

The ugly incident left her stunned, but also determined to continue her work exploring ways to identify and combat racism.

"I want the perpetrator to know that I will not be silenced," she told students and faculty members at a raucous rally Wednesday. "I am honored to be a part of a multicultural community that is Teachers College, which is situated in one of the most diverse cities in the world."

The discovery of the 4-foot-long twine noose _ a symbol of lynchings in the Deep South _ brought home the issues she has studied in academic settings from Louisiana and Memphis to Philadelphia and New York.

"I'd never had a moment like that in my life," she in an interview on "Good Morning America" on Thursday. "It was difficult. It felt very personal and very degrading. And I think it ... served to reinforce the issue that I'm African-American and I'm very proud of that, and that there's a history of oppression and racism against African-Americans in this country."

She did not return phone calls and e-mails to The Associated Press seeking comment. The university referred inquires to her attorney, Paul J. Giacomo Jr., who also did not return a phone call.

Constantine, 44, earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, a historically black institution where she also received her master's in counseling.

She later completed a doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Memphis and moved on to Temple University, where she was director of the vocational counseling center.

In Philadelphia, she was a consultant to inner-city schools and was once carjacked at gunpoint, said Frank Farley, a professor of psychology at Temple who is a friend and former colleague.

"She came from modest beginnings," Farley said, a former president of the American Psychological Association. "She's viewed by people I know at Memphis as one of their great success stories. She is astounding. She is extremely bright."

Constantine's research is centered on improving race relations and reducing ethnic and racial tensions, and she does her work in a quiet, low-key way, Farley said.

"That adds to the irony of this thing," he said. That "somebody who is so attuned to improving race and ethnic relationship and reducing tension would be the target of this kind of a thing."

Constantine went to the Columbia University Teachers College in 1998, where she specializes in mental health issues of U.S. minorities and immigrants. She has taught courses on group counseling and written about the exploration of racial identity and cultural experiences of African international college students.

The incident with the noose has not only thrust her and her research into public view, but has also revealed a simmering dispute with another professor at Teachers College.

In May, she sued a colleague for defamation, libel and slander and asked for $100,000 in damages. The case against psychology and education professor Suniya S. Luthar is pending. Luthar declined to discuss the lawsuit and wouldn't say whether she had spoken with police about the noose.

"I think it is an unspeakably ghastly, horrible incident," she said Thursday.

But police also ruled out any possibility that Constantine had hung the rope herself, saying "our victim is a victim."

Derald Wing Sue, an adjunct professor at Teachers College who does research with Constantine, said he is not surprised someone targeted Constantine, because her research seeks to expose racial injustices.

"The Teachers College has been at the forefront of social justice," he said.