Workplace inequity takes teacher from Michigan campus to national stage.
When Julie Nemecek first told the president of Spring Arbor University that she was transgender and would be assuming her female persona, the president, Nemecek said, was supportive. But in the weeks that followed, the associate professor was subjected to a series of rules that became more and more restrictive.
Nemecek, an ordained Baptist minister who changed her name from John, could not wear women's clothing or makeup on the campus of the conservative Christian school, which prohibits same-sex relationships. She could not teach on campus; only online. She could not discuss her transition with anybody from Spring Arbor University. She could not identify herself as an employee of Spring Arbor. Her salary was cut.
But all the repressive actions by the university, which is located 9 miles southwest of Jackson, were not enough to stop Nemecek from becoming who she was.
Last fall, the university notified her that she had violated her agreement not to identify herself as an employee when she was seen shopping in a local grocery store wearing a Spring Arbor University T-shirt.
"I own an Oxford T-shirt, too; does that mean I work for them?" Nemecek quipped in a conversation with students at Lansing Community College's Gay Straight Alliance.
Her employer decided to use the T-shirt incident as a pretext to dismiss Nemecek from her post. "They were hoping I would stay silent," Nemecek said.
Instead, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Then she went public with her story in the Jackson Citizen Patriot. Within a short time, Julie Nemecek was a national story, featured in Time, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications.
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