A professor at Yeshiva University, put on leave in 2006 after announcing she was transgender and in the process of becoming a woman, has returned to the Jewish campus — this time with a red purse slung over her shoulder, according to the New York Post.

Joy Ladin, an English professor at Yeshiva, was placed on indefinite leave two years ago after announcing her plans to change from male to female. The news came two weeks after the professor, then known as Jay Ladin, was given tenure, and although it has not been confirmed, faculty members have speculated that Ms. Ladin’s intentions were linked to her suspension.

Her return has caused a stir among the university’s rabbis, who said the 47-year-old’s lifestyle is a violation of Torah law and morality. Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a senior dean at Yeshiva’s rabbinical school, told the Post that “there is just no leeway in Jewish law for a transsexual.” The university’s president, Richard M. Joel, declined to comment but did say that he was proud of all his faculty members. Ms. Ladin received more support from students, who said the move was a step forward for the New York university.

In a similar case in 2007, Spring Arbor University, a Christian college in Michigan, settled with Julie Nemecek, a non-tenured faculty member who was notified that she could not wear women’s clothing to work. Ms. Nemecek, who was formerly known as John, had been told in December 2006 that her contract would not be renewed.

Lynn Conway, a professor emerita of engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, told The Chronicle in 2005 that a majority of large universities employ “perhaps a dozen or more transitioned women and men.” —David DeBolt