The longtime chairman of the Board of Trustees at Roger Williams University, Ralph R. Papitto, has resigned amid an uproar over his use of a racial slur at a board meeting, The Providence Journal reported, citing information it had obtained from another trustee who was ousted.

The trustee, Barbara H. Roberts, said she and two other board members had been forced out because they called for the resignation of Mr. Papitto, who used the slur during a May discussion about the board’s lack of diversity. Ms. Roberts and the only other woman on the Rhode Island institution’s 16-member board were booted on July 9, as was another trustee, Joseph A. Caramadre.

When asked by the newspaper what Mr. Papitto said at the May meeting, Mr. Caramadre said: “If you are asking me, did Chairman Papitto use a racial slur — the n-word — I would be inclined to tell the truth, and the answer is yes.”

The board’s composition was under discussion in response to an April warning from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which said the university’s accreditation could be threatened if the board did not appoint more-diverse members. Mr. Papitto, who is 80 and had been a trustee for 40 years, grew agitated during the meeting and used the slur in reference to the accreditor’s warning, according to Ms. Roberts.

Although Mr. Papitto declined to discuss the incident with the newspaper, he wrote about a “highly inappropriate statement I made at a private session of the board” in a letter to Ms. Roberts.

The law school at Roger Williams is named for Mr. Papitto, who has given $7-million to the university. Several of the remaining trustees have ties to Mr. Papitto, including his son-in-law and the chief executive of a building-products company he founded. —Paul Fain