I started legal proceedings too. I went to a "traditional" school, so I think you are perhaps reading too much into things.
As an aside, I recommend asking for receipts for all of the expenses they are claiming and keeping track of the deadlines for the provision of paperwork. In my case, the landlord had 21 days to provide receipts or they were liable for the FULL deposit. They failed to provide receipts, admitted so in writing and then stopped talking to me entirely for a bit until I pointed out that CA law allows for automatic triple damages for landlords witholding security deposits and that they had already missed their deadline to return the required paperwork to me.
(But I was aware my latin was incorrect; I was going for the spirit of the common corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est)
Modern US schooling is more-or-less intentionally training to not fight injustice, to not speak up unless spoken to, to fail to learn. Zero Tolerance policies are just one symptom. Spend some time in a classroom and you'll see the teachers favoritism, trying to be 'cool' and catering to the popular kids (and further alienating the unpopular ones), telling kids that they're wrong when they're ahead of the class and more right than the teacher wants to teach. Modern curriculums have been watered down and focus grouped into meaninglessness.
Scholae delenda est.