A professor at Spring Arbor University has asserted in a discrimination complaint that the Christian institution unlawfully removed her from a deanship and is now trying to get rid of her altogether because she told administrators that she planned to become a woman.

John Nemecek, who now goes by Julie, says the university in Michigan removed her as assistant dean of adult studies last June, demoted her to a non-tenure track faculty position, and slashed her salary by 20 percent, to $44,977. The university, which is affiliated with an evangelical group of Methodists, also gave Professor Nemecek a contract that required her to work primarily from home and that forbade her to dress like a woman on the campus or to talk to other university employees about her decision to change genders.

Professor Nemecek, who has worked at Spring Arbor for 16 years, filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in October, saying that the university had discriminated against her based on her sex and on her perceived disability. In December the university told the professor that it would remove her from her teaching post by this June and that she would no longer be a university employee.

A statement issued by a public-relations company on behalf of the university says Professor Nemecek’s actions “have been in direct conflict with the ideals we uphold.” It says the university requires faculty members “to be Christians and to follow Biblical principles.”

Professor Nemecek says that she is a Christian and that nothing she did violated Biblical principles. She is still married and has decided not to pursue gender-reassignment surgery. The professor and the university are scheduled to meet with mediators in early March to try to resolve the complaint.

A lengthy article on the case appeared in Sunday’s Jackson Citizen Patriot, a newspaper in Michigan.