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It’s a charge that Ave Maria’s School of Law probably never expected to see: Not Catholic.

But it’s one the Michigan-based school faced when a group of 16 Catholic and Christian law professors issued a joint statement this week decrying the school’s management practices.

The professors said action taken by Ave Maria School of Law “appears to us to violate core Catholic norms.”

The statement added the school has also “violated several procedural norms of the secular academy.”

Signers of the statement included professors from Cornell, Emory, Notre Dame and UCLA. Mark Sargent, the dean of Villanova’s law school, also signed.

Incidents this summer involving three professors at the school, which is scheduled to move from Ann Arbor, Mich., to the Collier County town of Ave Maria in 2009, prompted the statement, according to Sargent and fellow signatory Michael Scaperlanda, a professor at the University of Oklahoma’s law school.

“There are standards that we have for law schools and in particular Catholic law schools,” Scaperlanda said. “From both an academic standpoint and from a Catholic education standpoint, there seems to be an egregious violation of both.”

Two professors who have been critical of law school administration were denied tenure and placed on paid leave of absence in August.

One of the school’s original tenured professors, Stephen Safranek, was suspended with a recommendation for termination and barred from campus at the end of July.

The treatment of the professors goes against Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a 1990 apostolic constitution issued by Pope John Paul II that outlines criteria for institutions of Catholic higher education, the statement said.

The law school “has failed to live up to (that) commitment,” it said.

The statement comes in the wake of an American Bar Association inquiry into the school’s ability to attract and retain competent faculty members.

Ave Maria Dean Bernard Dobranski confirmed the inquiry by quoting an ABA letter in an e-mail to law school community members last week. The ABA is the primary accreditation body for law schools and must give its approval for the school’s move to Florida if Ave Maria wishes to maintain its status.

An ABA spokesman said Thursday the organization’s inquiry was “confidential” and declined to release any further details.

Also, the school’s alumni board has come out in support of the three professors, starting an online petition last month asking for their reinstatement.

Matt Bowman, a 2003 graduate and alumni board member, said more than half of the school’s graduates have signed the petition. The law school graduated its first class in 2003.

Dobranski and Tom Monaghan, the chairman of the school’s board, have attracted most of the complaints. Last year, members of the school’s faculty held a vote of “no confidence” in Dobranski and asked the school’s board to remove him, but the board refused.

Monaghan, who has provided much of the law school’s funding, is also the chairman of Ave Maria University. The university has no official relationship with the law school.

Safranek said the Catholic professors’ statement shows that Dobranski and Monaghan have become “pariahs in the academic community.”

“They’re seen as this ultra-way-out-there Catholic school,” Safranek said. “This further underscores how the rest of the world sees them as bizarre.”

Bowman, the school’s alumni board member, called the Catholic professors’ statement “monumental.”

“I think Tom Monaghan runs an academic dictatorship and uses his power not to fight heresy, but to fight those who disagree with him,” Bowman said. “He’s hurting good Catholic professors. I’m hoping the board will start to listen to others more than him.”

But Dobranski said the statement was nothing more than a continuation of an effort by a “very small group of people” to spread “disinformation and misinformation” about the school.

The statement was posted on a Catholic legal theory blog, Mirror of Justice on Wednesday night. One of the blog’s regular contributors, Richard Myers, is an Ave Maria School of Law professor who has been openly critical of Dobranski and the administration. Other contributors have spoken out against the school in the past.

“I find it extraordinary that a group of law professors in particular would make these statements after only hearing one side of the story,” Dobranski said. “We’re obviously constrained in what we can say on these matters because these are personnel issues.”

Dobranski also vigorously denied that Monaghan was involved in the school’s day-to-day operations.

He said the school’s critics have failed to provide proof of any situation where that has occurred. As for the charge relating to the school’s Catholicism, Dobranski said, “People should be worrying about their own institution’s Catholic identity rather than ours.”

The statement’s signatories hope Dobranski will work to alleviate their concerns. If he doesn’t then he should resign, Scaperlanda said.