The head of LGBT Services at the University of Minnesota-Duluth resigned in protest late last week over the school’s treatment of several lesbian staff in the university’s athletics department. Angie Nichols stepped down after 15 years of directing the LGBT Services office.

“I’m ashamed to work for UMD,” Nichols said in an interview with the News Tribune on Thursday. “I can’t be that figurehead or that puppet. I refuse to be used in that way.”

Late last year, the university refused to renew the contract of women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller. Miller had attained an impressive record as coach of the Bulldogs. At the same time, the university declined to renew the contract of Jen Banford, who served as women’s hockey director of operations. She was offered a renewal on her contract as head softball coach, but she declined. Then, in early June, women’s basketball coach Annette Wiles announced her resignation citing a hostile work environment.

Miller and Banford have filed complaints with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Elements of those complaints have been picked up by the U.S. Department of Justice. On Monday, the trio are announcing a lawsuit against the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

“I just realized that I was being used to try to change the reputation that UMD was gaining as a not-GLBT-friendly campus,” Nichols, told the Star Tribune.

She told the paper that she had brought her concerns to Chancellor Lendley Black. “I let him know that he had just let go of four openly gay women,” she said. “From a risk-management perspective, this seems ridiculously risky. And I didn’t know the reasons, other than what the campus was saying, that we were in a financial crisis.”

According to the Northland News Center, Nichols said her concerns went unanswered: “I honestly told him you know I’m coming from a risk management perspective, but maybe I’m also privy to this information because of the population I work with. The GLBT population on campus. Um… he gave me a blank stare out the window.”

Nichols also noted that as she and the former coaches issued concerns over the treatment of lesbian women in the department, the administration was pushing her to get the University of Minnesota-Duluth a higher ranking on Campus Pride, an organization that reports on LGBT campus climate.

The university released a statement to the Grand Forks Herald about the former coaches impending lawsuit. “We are aware that there is a press conference on Monday and are not in a position to comment about what the individuals or their lawyers will discuss there,” she said. “We have fully cooperated with an internal review of the complaints raised, and dispute the broad claims of discrimination.”