RANDOLPH CENTER, Vt. (AP) – The parents of a student who has quit Vermont Technical College after being expelled from his dorm for two weeks in an alleged “gay bashing” incident are threatening legal action.

School officials accused Rob Provost, 18, of “gay-bashing” after he wrote some swearwords on a sign two dorm mates had put on their door in retaliation for being squirted with a water gun. Provost’s message suggested they had been performing a homosexual act too frequently.

“It was a joke between me and two dorm mates,” Provost said from his South Weymouth, Mass., home on Sunday. “They squirted water on me and we were just messing around.”

A resident assistant came on the scene and found Provost in his room writing on the sign, Provost said. The resident assistant reported the matter to school authorities.

As punishment, Provost was evicted from his dorm for two weeks. He was still allowed to attend classes. His parents, Gloria Austrich and Jerry Provost, said they became alarmed when they learned their son was sleeping in his car or trying to stay up all night.

His parents called the sanction dangerous. “Make him wash the whole damn building, but don’t put him out in the cold,” Jerry Provost said.

College officials defended expulsion from dorms as a viable sanction for students who violate college policy or break the law.

VTC is part of the Vermont State Colleges system. Other schools in the system also remove students from dorms and request that they attend classes. The state’s largest college, the University of Vermont, does not.

Last Wednesday, when Rob Provost was to return to his dorm, college officials extended his dorm suspension for four weeks until the end of the semester. He violated the terms of the suspension by sneaking back into the dorm early in the morning for warmth, he and his parents said.

Austrich met with school officials on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to gather information from the college. Austrich, who has contacted two lawyers, plans to bring legal action against the school. The punishment procedure lacked due process and violated Provost’s right to free speech, his mother said.

She notified the school on Friday that her son was leaving.

AP-ES-11-16-03 1309EST