An academic who received awards for excellence and produced several peer-reviewed publications said he fell from grace when he began espousing "religious beliefs and [a] conservative political viewpoint" and is now suing his university for denying him promotion.

Criminologist Mike Adams has filed suit against the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, saying the school refused to promote him because his superiors disagreed with his religious and political beliefs.

According to the complaint filed on Monday, Adams was hired to teach at UNCW in 1993 and has served as an associate professor since 1998. During his tenure, he was named "Faculty Member of the Year" three times and generated research resulting in 10 peer-reviewed publications.

Adams applied for full professorship in 2004, but the then-interim chair of the department -- who was known as an outspoken feminist with leftist political leanings -- raised concerns about Adams' "political activity" and reprimanded him for his weekly nationally syndicated column.

In 2005, Dr. Kimberly Cook took over the school's Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. An outspoken atheist said to have openly criticized Christianity, Cook described to a recruitment committee her ideal candidate for a teaching position as "a lesbian with spiked hair and a dog collar."

Adams completed his 11th peer-reviewed publication in 2006 and again applied for full professorship. But during a closed-door meeting on Sept. 14, Cook and senior faculty members decided not to promote him, according to the complaint.

"The university is supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, and university officials should not treat religious or conservative professors as second-class citizens on campus," said David French, director of the conservative Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom, who is supporting Adams.

"In an institution of higher learning, professors should be promoted based on the quality of their work, not discriminated against on the basis of their beliefs," French said.

Adams told Cybercast News Service that when he first arrived at UNCW, he was considered "a rock star" on campus because he was a liberal atheist and "really fitted in well."

But the teacher underwent a religious conversion in 2000, and "when I sort of came out of the closet -- if you will -- as a conservative Republican, it really got ugly."

A week after 9/11, Adams received an email from Rosa Fuller, a UNCW student who had taken one of his classes. The email, also sent to 17 students and faculty members at the university, blamed the terrorist attacks on U.S. foreign policy. She asked the recipients to "forward this email to friends and acquaintances both on and off campus."

Adams did as Fuller requested, and also sent her a reply in which he noted that "the Constitution protects bigoted, unintelligent and immature speech."

When Fuller began receiving negative emails about her message, Adams said, she accused him of sending her email, along with his critical comments, to other people.

As a result of the student's complaints, university officials "ended up scouring and searching through my email account to find evidence" of Fuller's suspicions that he had forwarded her email and his remarks to others.

In the end, Adams said, "it was found that I was telling the truth." He had forwarded the email -- as the student requested -- but only sent the critical comment back to her.