“I love the University of Michigan and really hated to do this,” St. John said.

He is suing under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the state’s Whistleblower Protection Act, as well as for defamation, breach of contract and a violation of his due process rights.

Named in the suit are the U-M Board of Regents; Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the school of education;Annemarie Palincsar, associate dean for the school of education; and Stephen DesJardins, the director of the U-M Center for the Study of Higher Ed and Postsecondary Education.

Ball is one of the nation’s leading math education experts and serves on the National Board for Education Sciences underPresident Barack Obama.

University officials declined to comment on the suit, which was filed June 4 at the US District Court, Eastern District of Michigan.

"The university does not discuss ongoing litigation,” U-M spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said in an e-mail. “However, it is vigorously defending the named parties,"

St. John has been a tenured professor at U-M since 2005 and is the author or editor of 27 books on higher education policy. His research focuses on the interplay among public finance, educational policies and access in both K-12 and higher education.

The lawsuit notes numerous grant awards totaling over $3 million St. John helped to earn for U-M, as well as collaborations among other schools and colleges. His projects were often geared toward improving equity and diversity in urban and higher education.

According to U-M’s annual salary report, St. John has a 9-month appointment and was paid $153,000 in 2009.

According to the lawsuit, DesJardins tried to undermine St. John’s diversity initiatives, while Ball discouraged St. John from pursuing some of his initiatives while promoting her own.

This work environment caused stress and depression, according to the suit, and St. John was removed this spring from his winter semester teaching duties. He received less than one-day’s notice following a meeting with the dean to address his mental health, the lawsuit states.

St. John had no time to prepare his students, teaching assistants or staff about the modification to his contract, the suit states.

False statements about St. John’s teaching were distributed to U-M faculty, the lawsuit states, including that his teaching had deteriorated over time and that he had been incoherent in class. Contrarily, his reviews from graduate students he teaches were above average, the lawsuit states, and he expressed to administrators that teaching was his top priority, over research and writing.

Since being removed from teaching duties, St. John has gone on sabbatical to pursue research projects for U-M.

Juliana Keeping is a reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or 734-623-2528. Follow Juliana Keeping on Twitter