After running out of internal options for reversing her job termination, Teachers College professor Madonna Constantine filed a lawsuit against the school with the New York Supreme Court on Friday.
Constantine, a tenured professor of counseling and clinical psychology, gained notoriety last October when a noose was found on her office door and sparked a national debate about racism in academia. Police have not found the perpetrator. In February, TC announced that Constantine had been found guilty of plagiarizing passages from the work of three former students and colleagues. After Constantine appealed the decision, TC found her guilty once again and raised the penalty from undefined sanctions to termination pending appeal.
The law firm of Paul Giacomo will litigate Constantine’s case under an Article 78 proceeding of New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules, which allows Constantine to challenge the process by which TC decided to fire her as being “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable” under state law. This means that the New York Supreme Court will use TC’s own rules to evaluate the process of Constantine’s termination.
Article 78 is a blurry area of law because it appeals an internal procedure to state court. The court will judge the case based on TC’s internal procedures, which can be vague.
Constantine has said that she feels her “due process” was violated and is thus extending the process beyond TC.
Marcia Horowitz of press relations firm Rubenstein Associates, who TC appointed to speak about Constantine on its behalf, declined to comment because she said TC had not seen a copy of the lawsuit by Sunday evening.
Over the weekend, several news sources reported that Constantine was suing Columbia. In fact, Constantine is suing Teachers College, Columbia’s affiliate. The case comes after several internal appeals to faculty committees. In a previous statement, Giacomo said that Constantine could seek payment for “job actions taken against her” under federal and state employment law.
Though TC’s Faculty Advisory Committee had already rejected an appeal of sanctions imposed on her based on plagiarism charges, this summer Constantine appealed the FAC’s recommendation. The appeal, announced in a letter addressed to TC President Susan Fuhrman from Giacomo’s office, claimed that Constantine’s termination was retaliation for Constantine’s appeal of the first decision. The letter demanded a “de novo” or brand new investigation of all plagiarism charges and called for the removal of TC professor Barry Farber from the FAC due to a conflict of interests.
Giacomo, who was out of town this weekend, argued in the summer appeal letter that TC should not use statements by Constantine condemning the institution as grounds for her termination. He claimed that this violates her First Amendment rights.
“The vague reference you make to a document submitted to the media ... cannot provide a pretext for my client’s termination,” the letter said.
Specifically, Giacomo condemned the “secret” nature of the investigation, the circulation of documents among the FAC and trustees, and “attempted blackmail” of Constantine to provoke her resignation.
In the original decision against Constantine in February, independent firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed found that Constantine had used “strikingly similar language” to some of her students’ in her work. The decision named three individuals who had complained about Constantine’s plagiarism—former TC Professor Christine Yeh and students Tracy Julaio and Karen Cort. TC paid for their legal indemnity, or insurance for legal consequences the revelation of their names might cause.
Since that verdict, Spectator has learned that several other individuals have leveled charges against Constantine, but they were not granted the same legal privileges and thus kept their names hidden. Sources have also said the ordeal dates back to years before Fuhrman’s presidency and includes allegations of misused departmental funds.
The FAC dismissed Constantine’s earlier appeal, saying that her evidence was not verifiable. Representatives from Giacomo’s firm said they went to great pains to verify evidence—specifically, submission letters from editors that seem to prove that Constantine wrote the passages in question first—and circulated a spreadsheet detailing evidence of Constantine’s alleged innocence for each allegation of plagiarism.
Constantine is still listed in Columbia’s faculty directory and on TC’s web site as a professor of psychology and education.
joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com
