The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is being sued by a professor who alleges that he was demoted as head of an academic department because he refused to stop accusing a colleague of professional malfeasance and academic fraud.

In a lawsuit filed in state chancery court and described in detail in today’s Chattanooga Times Free Press, William P. Harman, a professor of religious studies, accuses the university of having violated his rights under the First Amendment and state public-employment laws in demoting him as head of the department of philosophy and religion.

The lawsuit alleges that the demotion last year stemmed from his refusal to alter the negative evaluation he had given an assistant professor and to stop accusing her of professional malfeasance and academic fraud as she sought tenure.

In its response to the lawsuit, the university denies Mr. Harman’s allegations and argues that it has sovereign immunity from his claims.

The colleague Mr. Harman had been accusing of misconduct — Talia Welsh, who has since gained tenure and is now an associate professor in the department — declined by e-mail today to respond to what she termed “malicious misinformation and personal attacks.” She described Mr. Harman’s complaint of being wrongly demoted as a matter between him, the university, and the courts.

Mr. Harman’s lawsuit asserts that Herbert Burhenn, dean of the university’s college of arts and sciences, ordered him to remove from Ms. Welsh’s 2007 annual evaluation claims that she repeatedly missed class without notice, had an extramarital affair with an undergraduate, and repeatedly falsified her credentials by taking credit for publications that did not exist.

The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Harman’s refusal to alter the evaluation or otherwise stop making such assertions led to a request from Mr. Burhenn to resign — which he refused — and his subsequent demotion from his position as department head.

In its response to the lawsuit, the university says it did not have sufficient information to reach a conclusion about Mr. Harman’s allegations concerning Ms. Welsh’s professional conduct.

The Times Free Press says a committee convened by the university looked into the allegation that Ms. Welsh had wrongly claimed authorship of articles that were never published. It concluded that she had incorrectly listed articles as “forthcoming” in the absence of a commitment from a publisher, but it blamed such inaccuracies on a lack of guidance she had received, partly because she had completed some of her doctoral studies abroad. —Peter Schmidt