Columbia's Shame? The New York Post takes a shot at Teachers College—and Columbia—for their handling of the Madonna Constantine affair.

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.

Now, all the right-wingers in New York (a small but enthusiastic group) like to tee off on Columbia, which does have some nutty lefties but really just happens to be a high-profile university in a big media town. (Imagine if Harvard were in New York. Yikes.)

But the Constantine situation is tricky. If Constantine did, as I believe, fake the noose incident in order to negate anticipated accusations of plagiarism, then she has put Columbia in a very awkward position.

After all, the incident has already prompted a number of demonstrations, some involving local African-American politicians. And Columbia, which is moving to develop its land in west Harlem, can't afford a racial controversy—something that Constantine surely knew if and when she hung a noose on her office door. If the university fired her, you can imagine what would happen—it'd be the Bonfire of the Vanities, or Tawana Brawley, all over again.

At the same time, it's appalling that someone who has committed dozens of instances of plagiarism, sometimes stealing from her own students—and not just words, but ideas as well—should be allowed to continue teaching anywhere at Columbia.

A sad consequence of Ms. Constantine's work on her own behalf, I suspect, is that colleges across the country may become more reluctant to hire African-American professors: Because if a blatant plagiarist can invent a race-based incident to successfully avoid being fired, then colleges may be more cautious about hiring black professors, on the grounds that if they ever need to fire the person, they won't be able to.....

Which means really that the same people who picketed on Ms. Constantine's behalf now ought to be picketing against her.

And which will surely make conservatives say that, well, that's what you get when you hire someone because of his or her race, rather than on the merits.

What a tragic mess.

Here's what I think will happen: Columbia will have to pay Ms. Constantine to make her go away. And she will take the money and run.  ¶ 7:37 AM