McGee and Tharp, according to the lawsuit, told Brown’s son that he was being punished because sending the email fell under one of the school’s definitions of bullying.

His punishment included six hours of work detail at the school, writing a statement about what he learned from the experience and “permanently marking his school file so as to show that he was found guilty of ‘bullying,’ with that derogatory record to be provided to any college to which (Brown’s son) will apply next year.”

Brown said in an interview Wednesday, and argues in the lawsuit, that the punishment is unfair.

In the lawsuit, Brown claims that all his son did was report “the facts, as he understood them, quietly and discreetly, fully identifying himself and giving the university the means to confirm the information that he was reporting.”

Maggie Walker disagreed, saying that he violated a school rule that classifies “falsifying statements about other persons” as bullying.

“I have never disagreed that there was (some deserved punishment) because the email didn’t have 100 percent fact,” Brown said Wednesday.

But, he said, “it was not bullying or cyberbullying — anybody who looks at the code knows that it’s not. Not even close.”