Shock at noose left on NY campus

Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

Columbia students and staff have expressed their shock and surprise at the incident - which occurred at the university's teachers college.

The discovery echoes a case last year in Jena, Louisiana, where white high school students placed nooses in a tree under which black students usually met.

Columbia University has not identified the professor who found the noose on Tuesday, but students say she teaches a class on racial justice.

Teachers college president Susan Fuhrman sent an e-mail to students and faculty members condemning "this hateful act".

Student Mary Owens told the Associated Press news agency: "It's really, really disturbing."

Professor Arlene Ackerman, who teaches at the college, said she was "shocked and stunned".

Nooses are reviled by many as symbols of lynchings that were once common in the southern US.

In the Jena case the white students involved were suspended but not prosecuted - prompting violent reprisals from black students and protest marches in the town.