HONOLULU (AP) – The University of Hawaii has settled a discrimination lawsuit by a gay couple that claimed the school wouldn’t allow them to return to the housing area they had previously lived in because it was reserved for married couples.

The university revised its policy on family housing to include same-sex couples as a result of the settlement. The policy took effect for the 2008-2009 school year.

A $5,000 settlement was also reached for Joseph O’Leary and Phi Ngo, who have since moved to Virginia.

“What the university is doing is fair, and both the university and clients are happy with the outcome,” said attorney Brian Chase of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., a national civil rights organization for homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender persons and those with HIV.

Chase said he believes the suit is the first against a public university involving housing for same-sex couples.

O’Leary and Ngo lived in family housing at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus for the 2006-2007 school year while O’Leary worked toward a bachelor’s degree in history and Ngo attended a private college in Honolulu.

Their family housing application was denied the following school year.

O’Leary and Ngo said they had to pay more than twice the amount to rent a private apartment than what they would have paid for a family unit on campus.

“I think it’s a positive message that the university recognizes committed same-sex couples should be permitted equal access to housing,” said attorney Clyde Wadsworth, who also represented the couple.

The university’s family housing policy has been revised to include domestic partners and their children.

“Students with partners must provide a certified copy of legal documentation that demonstrates that the student and partner have entered into a marriage, domestic partnership or civil union,” according to the new policy.

Same-sex couples also may prove their relationship by showing documents of joint responsibility for each other’s welfare such as a joint checking account, reciprocal beneficiary documents and designation of domestic partner as beneficiary of retirement death benefits.

“The settlement speaks for itself,” said university spokesman Gregg Takayama. “The policy have been revised to treat same-sex couples as our married couples.”