Columbia Defends Professor In Noose Incident, After Delay

Columbia University is issuing a belated defense of a professor who earlier this month was falsely accused of hanging a noose on a colleague's door.

For weeks, the university has been silent as a tenured professor of psychology and education at the Teachers College, Suniya Luthar, has been portrayed in press reports as a rival professor driven by a personal grudge over a book credit to intimidate a colleague, Madonna Constantine, by hanging a noose from her office door.

The president of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, said on Friday that in an effort to protect her privacy, the school had failed to offer Ms. Luthar the "public support she deserved." Ms. Luthar is "one of the most decent human beings we know," Ms. Fuhrman said during a speech on the state of Teachers College. "Professor Luthar is an eminent and cherished member of our faculty and deserves the embrace and support of this community." Reached at her home yesterday, Ms. Luthar said she did not want to "fan the flames" by discussing her reaction. She did say the belated response from Columbia made her wonder "what took them so long."

Even after police ruled out Ms. Luthar as a suspect in the case, her name has remained associated with the noose incident.

"It was defamation of Professor Luthar's character, and it was the university's responsibility to support her from the beginning," a first-year student at the Teachers College, Ricco Wright, said yesterday. "It was a shock that the administration was so caught up in the aftermath and didn't respond."

The college yesterday issued a glowing statement detailing Ms. Luthar's academic achievements.

"Her accomplishments have been recognized with over $10 million in grants. Colleagues inside and outside Teachers College have praised her as 'a person of utmost integrity' and 'one of the most decent human beings we know,'" Ms. Fuhrman said in a statement.

Police have yet to identify a suspect in the noose incident.