Pennsylvania Student Defense — Federal Claims & Campus Proceedings

Overview

Pennsylvania is home to one of the most student-protective appellate decisions in the country: Doe v. University of the Sciences, 961 F.3d 203 (3d Cir. 2020), where the Third Circuit held that a private Philadelphia university’s promises of fairness in its own policies were contractually enforceable — and that fairness meant real process. That decision frames how Pennsylvania student matters get litigated, and how they should be handled long before litigation. My work for Pennsylvania students is federal-law assessment, campus-process support where the school’s policy permits an advisor, and association with Pennsylvania local counsel or pro hac vice admission where court is warranted — the structure explained on the nationwide practice page.

The threshold question in every case is what kind of institution you attend. At a public university the Fourteenth Amendment applies and the argument sounds in due process, under Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), and the cases that followed it. At a private university the relationship is contractual, and the handbook and catalog are the contract, read through University of the Sciences. Pennsylvania then adds a category most states do not have — the state-related universities — where the threshold itself deserves analysis rather than assumption. Every route starts in the same place: the written policy and what the school actually did.

Pennsylvania schools covered

Each page below explains how discipline, academic integrity, dismissal, and Title IX matters typically move at that institution, which policies govern, and what a lawyer can and cannot do inside that particular process.

Public and state-related universities

Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln are state-related — a hybrid Pennsylvania arrangement in which institutions with independent corporate existence carry substantial public funding and public obligations. They have been treated as subject to due-process scrutiny in many contexts, but their hybrid status makes the public-or-private question itself a live issue, and in a serious case it should be analyzed early rather than assumed in either direction. The State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) universities, by contrast, are public in the ordinary sense, and constitutional due process applies to them directly.

• Penn State University — University Park and the Commonwealth Campuses (state-related)
• University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) — Pittsburgh (state-related)
• Temple University — Philadelphia (state-related)
• Lincoln University — Chester County (state-related)
• West Chester University — West Chester (PASSHE)
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) — Indiana (PASSHE)
• Slippery Rock University — Slippery Rock (PASSHE)

Private colleges and universities

At the private institutions the handbook is the contract, and University of the Sciences supplies the fairness gloss: when a private Pennsylvania school promises a fair process, the Third Circuit reads that promise to mean something real. The theory is developed on the breach of contract against universities page.

• University of Pennsylvania — Philadelphia
• Drexel University — Philadelphia
• Villanova University — Villanova
• Carnegie Mellon University — Pittsburgh
• Duquesne University — Pittsburgh
• Lehigh University — Bethlehem
• Bucknell University — Lewisburg
• Lafayette College — Easton
• Saint Joseph’s University — Philadelphia and Lancaster

Medical and health-professions programs

The university-based medical schools — Penn’s Perelman School, Pitt, Temple’s Katz School, Drexel, and Penn State College of Medicine — are covered on their parent university pages. Two standalone institutions get their own: Thomas Jefferson University, whose Sidney Kimmel Medical College anchors one of the region’s largest health-sciences universities, and Geisinger Commonwealth in Scranton. On the osteopathic side Pennsylvania is historic ground: the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) and the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM, Erie) — the nation’s largest medical school — are both headquartered here, with branch campuses reaching Georgia, New York, and Florida, and Duquesne’s new osteopathic college, which enrolled its first class in 2024, is covered on the Duquesne page. Dismissal, remediation, and professionalism matters follow the framework on the medical school dismissal page; board-exam accommodations run through the national programs on the USMLE & COMLEX page.

• Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) — Philadelphia, with Georgia branch campuses
• Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) — Erie home campus
• Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine — Scranton
• Thomas Jefferson University (Sidney Kimmel Medical College) — Philadelphia

Law schools

Penn Carey, Pitt, Temple Beasley, Villanova’s Widger School, Penn State Dickinson Law — now a single school operating in Carlisle and University Park — Drexel Kline, and Duquesne Kline are covered on their parent university pages. One law school stands alone: Widener Law Commonwealth in Harrisburg, the only law school in Pennsylvania’s capital. Law-school-specific issues are treated on law school dismissal & academic standing.

• Widener University Commonwealth Law School — Harrisburg

If a Pennsylvania 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 as leverage

Pennsylvania institutions answer to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, with programs accountable to the LCME (MD), COCA (DO), the ABA (law), and CCNE or ACEN (nursing) — each requiring published, fair, consistently applied academic and appeal procedures. A program that departs from its own written process has both a contract problem under University of the Sciences reasoning and an accreditation-standards problem. Saying so precisely, in writing, at the right stage tends to change who reads the appeal and how carefully.

Do not assume the school is improvising

Pennsylvania’s universities are veteran litigants. Treat the campus process as the record-building exercise it is — the reasons are in Do Not Underestimate Your School, and the starting point is a flat-fee record review.

The first step is always the same

Find the policy that actually governs your matter — the conduct code, the honor code, or the program handbook in effect for your cohort — and read it before you respond to anyone. Office names and web addresses change frequently, so locate the current document on your school’s own site rather than relying on a summary, including a summary on these pages. Then note the deadline in writing, request your file, and preserve anything relevant before it disappears. Timelines in these systems are commonly measured in days.

This is general information about the matters I handle and the law that applies to them. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the law in this area can change. For advice on your matter, start with the Full Read + Game Plan — your entire file read, straight answers, and exactly what to do next, in what order.

These pages are informational. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any institution named on it, and institution names are used only to identify the school a matter arises from.

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 Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania matters are handled as described on the nationwide practice page: federal-law assessment, campus-process support where school policy permits, and association with local counsel or pro hac vice admission where required, consistent with the applicable multijurisdictional-practice rules. Institution names identify where a matter arises; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.