Need Help Clearing a Friend's Name

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Hi All,

I have a friend who has regular autism.
He goes to a high school with 1685 students.

Here is the problem.

My friend has been framed for harassing other students and acting in an irratic manner. The majority of the student body has branded him a "creep" and given him the cold shoulder.
This has been going on for a while and my friend was kind enough to come to me for help. I have no idea what to do, so does anyone have some clue how to clear his name?

I wouldn't really call it being kind for him to come to you for help. A lot of autistics do act creepy whether they mean to or not. Since many autistics guys don't take hints well and keep on being persistant they give females the idea they are being stalked. The best thing you can do is teach him what is right and wrong behavior and insist that he stop doing whatever is creeping people at school out. If he doesn't learn how to behave now it will just continue to be a problem as he becomes an adult.

Perhaps enlist the help of a sympathetic adult such as a guidance counselor or psychology teacher. I remember in high school our psych teacher was the one everyone went to for help; he always had excellent advice and was not prejudice about anything.

i think the best you can do to clear his name is maybe if someone mentions him, put in a good word for him. keep it fairly subtle, just making it clear you don't see him as a 'creep', unless they start saying derogatory things about him, in which case you should defend him. maybe drop his name into the conversation once in a while, so it's clear to others that you're not freaked out by him for want of a better term.

i too was a little bemused by your saying he was 'kind enough' to ask your help. if he's genuinely misguided in his dealings with people then i sympathise, but i hope he doesn't take advantage of your compassion and open-mindedness. it sounds like he's lucky to have a friend like you.

The catch is we both go to different high schools, so I don't see him a lot of the time.

maybe then all you can do is go over the specific aspects of his behaviour you would think responsible for everyone ostracising him, and devise some ways of working on them. maybe if he has friends there they can do what i suggested before. it could be a bit tricky modifying his behaviour if he is more than mildly affected though, because that often makes learning from experience and generalising it to different social situations difficult because it requires a degree of empathising and observing what he might consider subtleties and intricacies. but i suppose it would be even better if he gets professional advice.