BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A University of Alabama at Birmingham freshman is claiming his civil rights were violated and his character defamed when he was evicted from his dormitory over an incident involving a non-firing toy gun.

The suit claims university officials embellished and fabricated evidence to bolster their case, failed to follow their own policies and denied the student due process on the basis of his gender, among other claims.

Court records show Shelby County resident Jonathan Parker filed a lawsuit last month against the school's board of trustees and nine university officials, including two student members of a conduct-review committee, over an Oct. 16 incident that resulted in him being banned from all UAB dormitories.

"UAB staff charged this student with conduct that does not violate UAB policy. The same staff then fabricated evidence to manipulate the student conduct review committee. Their conduct was intentional and outrageous," said Parker's attorney French McMillan of Sewell & Sewell LLC in Jasper.

That suit alleges Parker was carrying a red-tipped, non-firing toy pistol that he uses to practice self-defense disarmament maneuvers when he knocked on the door of two female students in his dorm to invite them to dinner.

The legal complaint gives few details about the exchange other than that only one of the female students was in her dorm room at the time, that she asked about the gun, he removed it from its case and showed it to her, told her it wasn't real and that she declined to go to dinner.

The suit claims she later sent Parker a text stating she was sorry she "freaked out" and that he had made her feel "uncomfortable."

Following that incident, which happened at approximately 5:45 p.m., the suit alleges, the two female students received another knock on their door sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m., causing them to notify their resident adviser who called UAB police.

While the female students refused to open the door for the two males who knocked, the suit alleges they mistakenly reported the visitors were Parker and his roommate due to the peephole of their handicapped-accessible room being too low to see their faces.

At the time of the second incident though, UAB records show Parker had been off campus for nearly two hours, the suit claims.

The complaint says a police report was filed stating that Parker had a gun and attempted to push himself into the female students' room. The female student chose not to press charges.

UAB's Resident Life Handbook forbids students from possessing any device that shoots a projectile, including BB guns, but it does not specifically ban non-firing weapons.

As a result of the incident, the suit states that Parker's dorm room was "unlawfully" searched and he was not permitted to enter the building when he returned the next morning.

Even with an escort, he was refused the opportunity to retrieve his homework or his epi-pen, which he has due to a peanut allergy.

The suit charges UAB with breach of contract for failing to notify Parker's parents before they ejected him from the dormitory and states that he was forced to spend "substantial funds" to find new housing to finish out the school year.

The suit also accuses Director of Student Engagement Emily Feinstein and Assistant Director of Student Engagement Debbie Morgette, both of whom were assigned to investigate the incident, of libel for embellishing and fabricating student testimony against Parker.

Specifically, it says Morgette included in a report on the incident testimony from Parker's roommate saying Parker would show the two female students torture videos and say he was trained to perform the acts.

But Parker's roommate secretly made a recording of his interview with Morgette, and that recording contains no such statement, according the suit.

The suit also says the report prepared by Morgette attributes to Parker's roommate a statement that he carried the toy gun to the female students' room "to scare them" when his actual response on tape was that he did not know the reason.

The suit further claims that Morgette falsely claimed Parker had removed the red tip from the gun, which designates it as a toy, and that she presented a black-and-white photo of the toy gun to school's Non-Academic Conduct Committee to disguise the fact that the cap was still in place.

As a result of the embellished and false evidence, the suit claims, the conduct committee found that Parker did present to the female student what she perceived to be a weapon -- though it ruled he did not attempt to forcibly enter her room, nor did he knock on her door between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

The committee placed Parker on probation, ordered him not to contact the two female students, barred him from entering all UAB dorms, ordered him to write a written apology to the female student involved in the incident, ordered him to interview a UAB police officer and write a paper on it, as well as attend an ethics and decision-making workshop.

At the time of lawsuit's filing, a hold on Parker's account had not been lifted, meaning he cannot register for fall 2014 classes.

The suit further alleges the committee unfairly placed the burden of proof on Parker to prove his innocence rather than on the university to prove his guilt and that the committee improperly allowed Morgette to serve as both investigator and prosecutor.

It also claims that the committee ignored the fact that no evidence was given that Parker ever possessed a weapon as defined by university policy and that the investigating officer testified she did not feel the female student was in any danger and that the student may have "overreacted."

The suit seeks monetary damages as well as a reversal of the committee's ruling.

Among other charges, it alleges UAB violated federal statute prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.

It alleges the school has created an environment in which any male student accused of misconduct is assured to be found guilty and that Parker was deprived a fair hearing as a result of "UAB's history of mishandling sexual assault allegations."

UAB officials declined to comment on the matter, saying they do not discuss pending legal issues. Requests for comment from individual defendants were not immediately successful.

The university has not yet responded to a freedom-of-information request seeking a copy of the police incident report. According to the lawsuit, that report described the discovery of an "air rifle" in addition to the toy gun in Parker's room.

However, that issue did not not come up in any of the hearings or charges against Parker. UAB declined to comment on that issue when asked specifically about it.

The lawsuit was filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court, but UAB filed Monday to remove the case to federal court where defendants statistically fair better.

McMillan said they had not yet decided whether they will oppose the removal to federal court.

Updated at 5:28 p.m. July 2, 2014 to add comment from French McMillan.