This might be a step too far, but your son has suffered at the hands of the administration. His privacy has been violated. He has no ability to confront his accuser. He has been harmed in that he can’t complete his schooling or go on with his happy life there. He may have already suffered damages and may well suffer long-term monetary damages.
It seems like he might have a case if you wish to sue the school. While I personally have never used an attorney for anything in my life, I’d be looking for a way to get more information from the administration, a way for my child to have some control – real control – over this issue, a way to hold the administration accountable, and a way to make sure that people who accuse others do not simply walk away. If that means, threaten a law suit, then so be it. I would at least consider this move.
I wouldn’t sue the school. However, you most definitely should bring up your concerns, and they should do what they can to set things right with your son, whether that involves offering him therapy or support services from an office that helps such students or even helping him find a new work study placement. Sounds like you have a good plan, however, and hopefully his anxiety about the incident will pass some over the summer.
My son went through a similar situation this year, the first month of his freshman year. I have given all of the details in another thread but the long story short is a girl in his dorm accused him of inappropriate contact. He was met with a knock on the door, forced move across campus and threat of expulsion. In the end he was not found to have done anything wrong, maybe just lack of judgement in terms of topics of conversation in mixed gender situations. This process took almost the entire semester and he was not able to move back to his original room/roommate due to apprehension from the accuser.
His initial response was transfer schools, I want out, nothing happened to her while my life was turned upside down, etc. We talked at length and he decided to give it another semester if for no other reason than to prove to the school and the girl that they didn’t break him. In hindsight he is glad he went back and in a small way advocated for himself and persevered. We have notice he matured a lot in this last semester and I have to believe this process had a lot to do with it.
Once the entire process was over I sent a letter to the Dean of Students detailing what he went through and how the process impacted him as the accused when ultimately he was exonerated. I didn’t expect a response but it was cathartic to put it down in writing. I received a meeting request from the Dean and in that meeting she asked to use my letter as a training tool as the school recognized the process is skewed towards the “victim” and there is not much to help/support the accused, especially when it turns out to be a false accusation.
My advice would be to contact the school, it can’t hurt. They are in a tough position with these types of scenarios (another school shooting today) in terms of protecting the student body as a whole and probably have never looked at it through the lens of the falsely accused.
I don’t think the OP son was “wronged” necessarily- it is certainly possible he did or said something, even in jest, that caused significant concern of imminent harm, and the police investigated and concluded things were ok. He consented to the search. It sounds like things worked out just as they should in this case. I have no reason to suspect the coworkers were malicious in the reporting-if the police think so, they can follow up. Generally we encourage the public to report if there is any concern-better safe than sorry. With all due respect, the fact that the OPmother says the boy would never do such a thing carries little weight; moms of recent shooters likely felt the same way. The search and a talk cleared things up.
So sorry for you and your son. Yes, parenting is hard enough even in the most banal of circumstances, I think you are well within your rights to meet with whomever you think of at the school to discuss this and all relevant matters. You are your son’s best advocate and always will be - you seem like a very well spoken person. Unfortunately ( kind of for better or worse) parenting never ends even when your child is 30-40-50. At some point one needs the child to help the elderly parent but you are far from it.
Right now I am asking my 80ish parents to take one of my children to a national qualifying tournament while another is graduating high school - again relying on my parents!! I digress but point is yes ask for a meeting - be as level headed and calm as you can be, if you have a friend, educator, advocate (attorney) bring them along for moral support. This is the tough part of parenting but it sounds like your son has so many positive aspects to his personality (intelligence, resilience) that he is a winner and will overcome this unfortunate mistake. Good luck and update if possible!