US News

SLEUTHS SEEK TO QUIZ RIVAL IN ‘SMEAR’

The black Teachers College professor targeted with a hangman’s noose filed a defamation suit against another professor at the school earlier this year, The Post has learned.

Madonna Constantine filed the lawsuit in May against Suniya Luthar, a professor of psychology and education at the Columbia University institution. The suit accused Luthar of defamation, libel and slander and sought damages in “excess of $100,000.”

Details of the dispute were unclear. Paperwork filed in Manhattan State Supreme Court did not include a complaint laying out the cause of the disagreement.

In the documents, Constantine indicated she was representing herself and Luthar, who is from India, never filed a countersuit or response.

Police sources said Luthar had replaced Constantine – who teaches the same subject – when she went on sabbatical and grew upset when she returned and took back her position.

“There’s apparently ill will about that,” one source said.

It is not clear if the lawsuit stems from that dispute.

While the sources said investigators, as a routine procedure, are particularly interested in speaking with Luthar, department officials said they also plan to interview several other professors at the Teachers College.

“We are not convinced of anything. We are examining all investigative pathways,” said Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commanding officer of the NYPD’s hate crime task force.

Outside Luthar’s Scarsdale home, her husband, Shiva Kumar, 49, said that his wife was away on a business trip yesterday and declined to comment.

“I am not in the position to talk about it right now,” he told The Post.

Susan Fuhrman, the president of Teachers College, said the dispute between the two women began about a year earlier.

“It started more than a year ago. I’m not going to speculate on this investigation and its connection to this [incident]. I’d be outraged and horrified if it was connected.”

Messages left for a spokesman for the school and the college’s general counsel were not returned.

Since the discovery of the noose on Constantine’s campus office door Tuesday morning, she has hired an attorney, who did not return a call for comment.

dareh.gregorian@nypost.com