A Virginia Tech professor filed a complaint Tuesday with the university's equal opportunity office alleging that single-sex classes for visiting Saudi Arabian faculty had created a hostile environment for women.

While university administrators said the classes will continue, Provost Mark McNamee issued an apologetic statement Tuesday saying classes separated by gender were incompatible with Tech's policies.

McNamee also vowed to use the incident as a "learning moment" when negotiating future contracts with foreign visitors.

For the past month, approximately 60 faculty members from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have received training at Tech on topics such as distance learning, Web site design and English. Tech received $246,000 to design and run the program.

Men and women learn in separate classes in all but one of the programs. Administrators at King Abdulaziz University, which operates separate campuses for men and women, created the class rosters. And Saudi faculty, who were later given the choice of co-ed classes, have since said they feel more comfortable in single-sex classes.

Several Tech faculty members have accused the university of allowing a Saudi university to import regressive attitudes toward women onto campus.

Tuesday, professor Eloise Coupey filed a formal complaint with Tech's Office for Equal Opportunity claiming that the segregated classes creates a "hostile" and "intolerant environment in which there is little concern for gender equality."

Coupey, an associate professor of marketing, also claims Tech is violating its own policies - and possibly federal or state laws - by allowing the students to self-segregate.

"Suppose we have a situation at Virginia Tech where students said we didn't want to be [racially] integrated," Coupey said Tuesday. "Would we allow them to segregate into white classes and black classes?"

She added: "Segregating by gender is something we don't do here."

University officials declined to discuss Coupey's complaint, stating that it would be investigated by the Office for Equal Opportunity.

But in his statement to deans and department heads, McNamee said separating classes by gender "is not compatible with Virginia Tech policies and procedures."

"There is clearly a disconnect between our fundamental commitment to nondiscrimination based on gender and our commitment to a climate for work and learning based on mutual respect and understanding," McNamee wrote.

"We regret that our internal review process did not anticipate this situation and develop a reasonable alternative in partnership with our visitors."

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker, who last week defended the decision as Tech's attempt to be respectful of the Saudi preferences, said the university will more clearly communicate its policies in future negotiations with outside groups.

"If this situation were to arise again, we wouldn't do it this way," Hincker said.

Saudi faculty, meanwhile, reasserted Tuesday that they were separating by choice, not by force.

Dr. Jamila Farsi, a female professor of dentistry, said several men joined the women's group Tuesday for part of the class.

But having separate classes at Tech allows the instructors and Saudi faculty to tailor the content to their single-sex classes back home, she said.