CLINTON - A Hamilton College program director has resigned after igniting a furor by inviting to the campus a controversial professor who compared Sept. 11 victims to Nazis.

Nancy Rabinowitz said she was resigning "under duress" as director of the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture. She will continue to teach comparative literature.

Rabinowitz resigned in a telephone call Thursday night to College President Joan Hinde Stewart. Her resignation is effective immediately, the school said.

Her departure comes on the heels of a Feb. 3 speaking invitation extended to University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill, whose essay written shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks compared the World Trade Center victims to "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann who ensured the smooth running of the Nazi system.

Rabinowitz also drew fire in November when the program she headed offered a temporary teaching position to 1960s radical Susan Rosenberg.

"I would have preferred to stay on until I took my long-awaited sabbatical," Rabinowitz said in a statement posted on the Kirkland Project web site and released by the school. She has been the project's only director since the program was founded in 1996.

"What the project needs now is someone more adept at the kind of political and media fight that the current climate requires. Therefore, it is in the interests of the mission of the project itself and for no other reason that I am yielding to requests that I resign," she said.

Rabinowitz's statement said much of the criticism had been directed at her personally, which "in turn, has been destructive to the project and to the educational mission of the college."

Churchill was forced to resign as a department chairman at Colorado in the recent aftermath of his essay's revelation. In the piece, Churchill also suggested many of those killed in the World Trade Center attacks deserved their fate, and spoke of the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America.

The essay attracted little attention until Churchill was invited last month to speak at Hamilton, a liberal arts school with 1,750 students located about 40 miles east of Syracuse.

His appearance was ultimately canceled by Hamilton's administration, which cited security risks after deaths threats were directed at both college officials and Churchill.

The Kirkland Project also generated disapproval for inviting Rosenberg to teach a half-credit course on memoir writing.

Rosenberg was indicted but never tried for a 1981 armored car robbery that left a guard and two police officers dead. She was sentenced for 58 years on charges of weapons possession, but President Clinton granted her clemency in 2001 after she served 16 years.

Stewart said the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs will assume oversight of the Kirkland Project for the remainder of the semester.

Meanwhile, Stewart said administrators continue to review the program. She added that any budget allocations made by the program for the remainder of the year will require prior approval.

The review, which is being led by Associate Dean of the Faculty Kirk Pillow and includes four other Hamilton faculty members, will be completed by the end of the academic year in May.