PITTSBURGH — A white Spanish professor filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday claiming she was fired from the University of Pittsburgh because she spoke the language with a European accent and was looked down upon by Hispanic faculty members, including a Bolivian department chairwoman who called Spain a land of “oppressors.”

Sarah Williams, who is identified only as a Pittsburgh-area resident who is over 40 years old, contends she was an award-winning teacher for most of her 14 years who only began to have problems at the university after Elizabeth Monasterios, a Bolivian, became chairwoman of the Spanish language department in 2008.

“The leadership of the department before and during the time when her renewal came up was in the hands of Latin American Hispanic people and she was treated unfairly, notwithstanding being an outstanding teacher recognized for her long and excellent service,” Williams’ attorney, James Lieber, said. “First she began to lose opportunities and then she began to lose her job.”

The department faculty voted in October 2010 not to extend Williams’ contract, and after she lost an appeal to the provost, her contract was terminated at the end of June, according to the lawsuit.

Monasterios told the AP by e-mail that she had no comment on the lawsuit. Pitt spokesman John Fedele said the university does not comment on pending litigation.

Williams won the university Provost’s Innovation In Teaching Award in 2007, but her lawsuit says her performance reviews nonetheless suffered after Monasterios became department chairwoman.

Williams is seeking reinstatement, back pay and other unspecified damages in the lawsuit which targets Pitt and the state’s system of higher education, because the university is considered “state-related” because it receives some state funding.