Hate mail sent to Teachers College professors contained anti-Semitic and racist emblems, New York City Police Department officials confirmed Thursday.

Professors at TC received the envelopes on Tuesday, according to an e-mail that TC President Susan Fuhrman and Provost Thomas James sent to students.
The NYPD’s Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information confirmed that a drawing of a noose was sent to one professor.

“There were four envelopes. One of them was addressed to a Jewish teacher and contained an anti-Semitic symbol. Of the three others, two of them had anti-Semitic symbols and the other had an anti-black symbol in it,” a DCPI representative said on Thursday.

Although DCPI did not comment on whether the envelopes were connected to previous hate crimes at TC, the image of a noose conjures memories of a rope looped around the door of TC counseling and clinical psychology professor Madonna Constantine’s office in October 2007.

Constantine, who is black, railed against the incident, which she found to be a crime of racism. “I would like the perpetrator to know that I will not be silenced,” Constantine said afterward.

The noose incident in 2007 was the first of a series of hate crimes on campus, including racist graffiti in a Lewisohn Hall bathroom and a swastika on the door of a Jewish professor’s office in TC’s department of counseling and clinical psychology-the same department where the noose was found. Later in October 2007, two faculty members received “anti-Semitic materials,” according to an e-mail from James.

The DCPI representative confirmed that hate-crimes detectives from the NYPD’s 26th Precinct are investigating this week’s incident, adding that he had no knowledge of FBI involvement.