A senior academic has stepped down from her role at a top US university after emails emerged in which she urged Chinese students to speak English.

Dr Megan Neely left her post as director of graduate studies at Duke University in North Carolina after sending a message stating staff members had been “disappointed” to hear a group of first-year Master’s degree students speaking Chinese in a study area.

Dr Neely will stay on at the university as an assistant professor.

In the leaked email, the academic complains staff had heard a group of students from China speaking “VERY LOUDLY” in their mother tongue.

“They were disappointed that these students were not taking the opportunity to improve their English and were being so impolite as to have a conversation that not everyone on the floor could understand,” she continued.

“To international students, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep these unintended consequences in mind when you choose to speak in Chinese in the building.”

The email had been sent to all first and second year students in Duke’s Master of Biostatistics programme on Friday afternoon.

Dr Neely explained she had included students further into their studies in the email as a “reminder” because they were “currently applying for jobs”.

The message immediately generated backlash, including a petition calling for an investigation into the researcher and her remarks, which garnered more than 1,000 signatures within the space of 24 hours.

“As members of the Duke community, we embrace what the University espouses as its core institutional values: nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, and mutual respect,” the petition stated.

“We also believe that the University has the responsibility to invest in the personal growth of all of its members, regardless of their race, ethnicity, and national origin.

“We are disheartened, therefore, when Duke’s faculty members implied that students of diverse national origin would be punished in academic and employment opportunities for speaking in their native language outside of classroom settings.”

Mary Klotman, dean of the university’s medical school, said she had asked Dr Neely to step down and would be asking for the school’s Office of Institutional Equity to conduct a review into the programme.

“There is absolutely no restriction or limitation on the language you use to converse and communicate with each other,” Ms Klotman said in a statement sent to The Duke Chronicle, the university’s student newspaper.

“Your career opportunities and recommendations will not in any way be influenced by the language you use outside the classroom. And your privacy will always be protected.”