A New York State appeals court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism who had accused the school of misdirecting $4. 5 million in funds tied to her endowed professorship. The appeals panel’s dismissal follows a Manhattan trial court’s ruling last year that Sylvia Nasar, the John S. and James L. Knight professor of business journalism at Columbia, had no standing to sue for monetary damages because the funds belonged entirely to Columbia. The author of the best-selling book “A Beautiful Mind,” Ms. Nasar filed her lawsuit against Columbia in March 2013, accusing the university of mishandling money generated by a $1. 5 million endowment from the Knight Foundation, which was supposed to be matched by Columbia. Ms. Nasar, a former reporter for The New York Times, was hired by the journalism school in 2000. In September 2010, she said she received an email from the university identifying more than $70,000 in what she called “phantom I. T. ” charges. These charges, she said, were for expenses that she never incurred. After further research, Ms. Nasar said she learned that the endowment spending was more extensive and included “the fruit of the endowment. ” She contacted the Knight Foundation, which then hired the accounting firm KPMG to perform an audit. Court papers showed that the Knight Foundation learned that the expenses unrelated to Ms. Nasar’s professorship added up to $4. 5 million. After these disparities came to light, Columbia and the foundation reached an agreement that in the future the university would spend funds in ways “consistent with the purpose of the chair. ”Ms. Nasar said in her lawsuit that because she complained about the funds, she was “intimidated and harassed,” by the dean at the time, Nicholas Lemann. Reached late Friday, Mr. Lemann said, “I’m very pleased with the verdict. ”In December, a lower court dismissed Ms. Nasar’s lawsuit. In Thursday’s ruling, the court said the agreement between the Knight Foundation and Columbia gave the university “full discretion to choose the holder of the endowed chair, and to spend monies from the fund. ”Elizabeth Fishman, a spokeswoman for the journalism school, said in an email, “We don’t comment on matters related to litigation. ”Ms. Nasar said in a phone interview on Friday that she was disappointed with the ruling. “These endowed professorships like the Knight chair are really crucial,” Ms. Nasar said. “When somebody is privileged to hold one of these chairs and sees that go wrong, they should do something about it, and that was what I was trying to do. ”

• published: 19 Nov 2014
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