A former Kansas University police officer claims he was fired unjustly for accessing his girlfriend’s campus e-mail account, and that the department discriminated against him because he’s a white male.

David Haney was fired from the KU Public Safety Office in January 2006.

KU police referred questions about the situation to KU spokesman Todd Cohen, who said he can’t talk about it because it involves an ongoing lawsuit.

Haney filed suit against the university in January, seeking more than $500,000 in damages for claims including discrimination, defamation and the loss of his job.

“We’re confident the university will prevail and the complaint will be dismissed,” Cohen said. “A response will be filed in court, which is the proper place for it to be reviewed.”

Haney said his problems started in October 2005, when his girlfriend of three years – who was at the time an employee of a KU undergraduate advising center – gave him her campus e-mail password.

“I did not use this password to get into systems to manipulate or damage or steal or anything else,” he said. “This was a personal, private matter.”

Haney said he was suspended from work in December 2005 after his girlfriend’s supervisor reported to police that the girlfriend had given Haney her e-mail password in violation of university policy. He said the police department began investigating him for a computer-related crime.

Haney said the department shouldn’t have treated it as a criminal matter. At worst, he said, he should have been disciplined for violating a campus policy on sharing e-mail passwords – a rule he says he didn’t know existed until after he got in trouble.

Haney said he was fired Jan. 10, 2006, following an internal-affairs investigation and a criminal investigation.

He worked for a time for the Washburn University police department but no longer works there. He declined to comment about why his employment there ended.