SWASTIKA FOUND ON DOOR OF JEWISH COLUMBIA PROFESSOR

Swastika found on professor's door at Columbia Teachers College (NewsDay)
A second professor of psychology and education at a Columbia University school has been targeted with a symbol of bias and hatred, police said.

Elizabeth Midlarsky, who is Jewish, discovered a painted swastika on her office door Wednesday morning. Like Madonna Constantine, who found a noose on her office door Oct. 9, Midlarsky is a professor of psychology and education.

The Police Department's hate crime unit is investigating both incidents. No arrests have been made, police said.

Midlarsky's research focuses in part on altruism, and she has studied heroic rescues during the Holocaust. Her profile on the school's Web site says she is currently working on a project on school violence.

Both Midlarsky and a spokeswoman for the school did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The discovery of the noose roiled the Ivy League campus, and students, faculty and administrators denounced the incident targeting Constantine, who has written extensively about race.

A few days later, a caricature of a yarmulke-wearing man and a swastika was found on a university bathroom stall door. Police at the time said there was no reason to believe the two incidents were linked.

Since the noose was found outside Constantine's office, others have been discovered outside a post office near ground zero and in at least four locations on Long Island. Police have said they believe one or more copycats could be responsible. Nooses, charged with symbolism of lynchings in the Old South, have also appeared in recent incidents around the country.