Georgia Student Defense — Federal Claims & Campus Proceedings

Overview

Georgia sits in the Eleventh Circuit — the same federal appellate court that governs my Florida practice — which means the due-process, Title IX, and disability-law framework I work in every day is the controlling law for Georgia’s public universities too. Barnes v. Zaccari, 669 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. 2012), the leading student due-process case in this circuit, arose at a Georgia public university. So did the rule it applied: Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 294 F.2d 150 (5th Cir. 1961), which remains binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit, established that a public college cannot expel a student for misconduct without notice and a meaningful hearing. For Georgia students my work is federal-law assessment, behind-the-scenes support in campus proceedings where the school’s policy permits an advisor, and — where court is warranted — association with Georgia local counsel or admission pro hac vice. My bar admissions are in Florida and the federal courts, and the nationwide practice page explains how that works.

The most important distinction is whether your school is public or private. At a public institution the Fourteenth Amendment applies and the argument sounds in due process. At a private institution — and Georgia has consequential private schools, from Emory to the Atlanta University Center to the state’s osteopathic programs — the relationship is contractual, and the handbook and catalog are the contract. Both routes start in the same place: the written policy and what the school actually did.

Georgia schools covered

Each page below explains how discipline, dismissal, and appeals typically work at that institution, which offices and policies govern, and what a lawyer can and cannot do inside that particular process. The differences are practical rather than cosmetic: the office that hears your case, the standard it applies, the length of the appeal window, and whether an advisor may speak all come from your institution’s own published policy.

Public universities

• University of Georgia (UGA) — Athens
• Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) — Atlanta
• Georgia State University — Atlanta
• Augusta University — Augusta, including the Medical College of Georgia
• Kennesaw State University — Kennesaw and Marietta
• Georgia Southern University — Statesboro, Savannah, and Hinesville
• University of West Georgia — Carrollton
• Valdosta State University — Valdosta

As public universities in the University System of Georgia, these schools are bound by constitutional due process under Dixon and Barnes, and by their own published conduct and academic policies.

Private colleges and universities

• Emory University — Atlanta
• Mercer University — Macon
• Morehouse College — Atlanta
• Spelman College — Atlanta
• Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) — Savannah and Atlanta
• Berry College — Mount Berry, near Rome
• Oglethorpe University — Brookhaven

At private institutions there is no constitutional due-process claim, and arguing one wastes the appeal. The claim is contractual: the handbook, the catalog, and the policies are the promises that matter, and the question is whether the school kept them.

Medical and health-professions programs

Medical students generate a disproportionate share of the matters I handle, because in a medical program the sanction is rarely a suspension. It is remediation, a repeated year, a professionalism notation, or dismissal, and each of those follows the student into residency applications and state licensure. The stakes are structurally higher and the timelines shorter.

• Morehouse School of Medicine — Atlanta (an independent institution, separate from Morehouse College)
• PCOM Georgia — Suwanee (the page also addresses PCOM South Georgia in Moultrie)
• Emory University School of Medicine — covered on the Emory University page
• Medical College of Georgia — covered on the Augusta University page
• Mercer University School of Medicine — covered on the Mercer University page, with campuses in Macon, Savannah, and Columbus

The PCOM programs are private and osteopathic, which changes the legal theory from due process to contract. Dismissal, remediation, professionalism, and clinical-failure matters in all of these programs follow the framework on my medical school dismissal page, and board-exam accommodation issues run through the national testing bodies rather than the school — see USMLE and COMLEX accommodations.

Law schools

• Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School — Atlanta
• University of Georgia School of Law — covered on the UGA page
• Emory Law — covered on the Emory University page
• Georgia State College of Law — covered on the Georgia State page
• Mercer’s Walter F. George School of Law — covered on the Mercer University page

Character-and-fitness exposure makes early handling of conduct and academic matters especially important for law students — a finding that seems survivable in law school gets read again, years later, by a bar examiner. See law school dismissal and academic standing.

If a Georgia institution is not listed, that does not mean the matter cannot be handled. It means a dedicated page has not been written yet. The analysis in a discipline or dismissal case depends far more on the governing policy and the facts than on the name of the school.

Accreditation is a second lever

The institutions on this page answer to accreditors — SACSCOC, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, for the colleges and universities, and specialized bodies layered on top: the MD programs to the LCME, the osteopathic programs to COCA, the law schools to the ABA. Accreditors expect published, fair, and consistently applied procedures for academic progress, discipline, appeals, and student complaints. When a school departs from its own written process, that is a contract problem at a private institution, a constitutional problem at a public one, and an accreditation problem at either. Saying so precisely, in writing, at the right stage tends to change who reads the appeal and how carefully.

Do not assume the process will sort itself out

The recurring mistake I see from Georgia students is treating the first letter as a formality — answering it alone, quickly, and apologetically, on the theory that cooperation will be rewarded. Sometimes it is. Often the early statement becomes the strongest evidence in the file, and the response window, commonly measured in days, closes before anyone has read the actual policy. The school has professionals who run these processes every week; you get one first response. The reasoning is laid out at do not underestimate your school.

What Georgia students typically bring me

Academic dismissals and professionalism referrals in medical, nursing, and graduate programs; honor-code and AI-cheating allegations; Title IX matters under the federal regulations; disability-accommodation failures under Section 504 and the ADA; and FERPA records disputes. The campus process runs on the school’s own policy wherever the school sits, and the federal claims are the same ones I litigate in the Eleventh Circuit’s home territory.

How engagement works for Georgia matters

Start with the flat-fee Full Read + Game Plan — the review addresses your federal claims, the school’s own rules, and your practical options. If the matter needs Georgia-law advice or a Georgia courtroom, I associate local counsel or seek pro hac vice admission, and I will tell you candidly if the matter belongs entirely with a Georgia lawyer instead.

Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is admitted in Florida, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Florida, and the Eleventh Circuit — not in Georgia. Georgia matters are handled as described above. Institution names identify where a matter arises; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. This is general information, not legal advice.