Litigation Against Schools: What I Am Actively Litigating

Most student matters should never reach a courtroom, and most of mine do not. They are won inside the school’s own process, on the school’s own rules, before anything is filed. But a practice that cannot credibly file is a practice a school can wait out — and institutions know the difference. Whether a lawyer actually litigates is among the first things a university’s counsel checks when one appears on a matter.

I litigate. This page is about that side of the work: what is in court now, what I take to court, and what a lawsuit against a school actually involves — including the parts that argue against filing one.

What is in court right now

I am actively litigating student matters in both federal and state court against universities. Client identities, institutions, and case specifics are not published here — a matter being a public record does not make it mine to advertise, and I do not put clients on a website to market a practice. Described generally, the active work includes:

• Disability claims — Section 504 and the ADA. Accommodations denied, approved and then not implemented, or treated as optional by a program, with an academic or clinical consequence that followed.
• Due-process claims against public institutions. Proceedings run without the notice or the hearing the school’s own policy and the Fourteenth Amendment required.
• Breach-of-contract claims. Handbooks, catalogs, and published policies enforced as what they are — terms the institution wrote and then did not follow.
• A putative class action on behalf of students. Where a policy or practice affected a group rather than one person, the individual case is the wrong instrument.

Matters are pending in Florida state court and in federal district court. I am admitted in Florida, in the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Florida, and in the Eleventh Circuit.

Two things are worth saying about that list. First, it is small on purpose. I take the cases I can actually carry, which is why I turn down more than I accept. Second, none of those matters started as a lawsuit. Every one began as a student with a notice and a deadline, and became litigation only because the school left nothing else.

What I take to court

Due process

The school ignores its own handbook, skips a hearing it promised, or decides first and papers the process afterward. At a public institution that is a constitutional problem as well as a contractual one. The work is enforcing the process you were actually owed — and, where the school has mislabeled a punishment as an academic judgment, establishing what the decision really was.

Professional-program dismissal

A medical, nursing, pharmacy, dental, or law student removed late in a program, often after years and six figures of investment, sometimes weeks from a degree, a match, or a licensure application. These are the highest-stakes matters I handle and the ones where timing matters most, because the goal is to stop the dismissal while the student is still enrolled. Reinstating a student who has already been separated is a materially harder problem than preventing the separation.

Title IX and misconduct findings

A finding that rests on an investigation that was not one — evidence not gathered, exculpatory material ignored, cross-examination denied where it was required, an appeal reviewed by nobody. The applicable federal regulations have been rewritten more than once in recent years, and which version governed your proceeding depends on when it happened. That is a real issue, not a technicality, and it is one of the first things I check.

Section 504 and the ADA

Accommodations denied or ignored, and a disability-related failure recorded as though it were an academic one. A large share of academic dismissals are accommodation failures wearing a different label. These are frequently the strongest claims a student has and the ones they arrive least aware of, because the harm looks like a bad grade.

When litigation is the right tool — and when it is not

Litigation is slow, expensive, public, and adversarial in a way campus proceedings are not. It also changes the relationship permanently: the school stops being an institution you are negotiating with and becomes an opposing party with counsel. Sometimes that shift is exactly what a matter needs. Often it is the last thing a student wants, because what the student wants is to graduate.

The honest test is not whether you were treated unfairly. Unfairness is not a cause of action. The test is whether a specific legal duty was broken, whether the record proves it, whether a court can remedy it, and whether that remedy is worth what it costs to obtain. I will tell you when the answer is no. That answer is common, and it is not a lesser service — a student told plainly that the courthouse will not help has been spared years and a great deal of money spent learning it slowly.

Two situations move the needle toward filing. The first is a consequence about to become permanent — a dismissal taking effect, a transcript notation posting, a licensure application coming due — where only a court can stop the clock. The second is a school that has stopped engaging: the internal process is exhausted, the answer is no, and nothing short of a complaint produces a different conversation.

The claims, and their limits

There is no general claim for “my school was unfair.” A complaint is built out of specific theories, each with its own elements and its own ceiling.

Due process reaches public institutions, which are state actors. A student facing suspension is entitled to notice and an opportunity to respond. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975). How much more is owed turns on a distinction students most often get wrong: Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), separates disciplinary dismissals, where the school accuses you of doing something, from academic ones, where it judges your work — and academic decisions carry far less procedural protection. Regents of the University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985), further instructs courts to defer to genuine academic judgment. Schools understand that advantage and reach for the academic label. Establishing that a dismissal was actually punitive is often the whole ballgame. Private institutions are not state actors and generally owe no constitutional due process at all.

Section 504 and the ADA reach schools receiving federal funds — nearly all of them, public and private — and require reasonable accommodation in coursework, clinicals, testing, and discipline. These claims live or die on documentation created at the time, which is why the accommodation file should be preserved early.

Title IX is privately enforceable. Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677 (1979). Where the claim is the school’s response to harassment, the damages standard is demanding — actual notice and deliberate indifference. Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, 524 U.S. 274 (1998); Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999).

Breach of contract is the theory that reaches private schools where the Constitution does not, and it is frequently the most useful one in the case, because it holds the institution to the document it wrote. The work is unglamorous and decisive: line up what the policy required against what the school did.

FERPA is raised constantly and misunderstood almost as often. It creates no private right of action — you cannot sue for damages under it. Gonzaga University v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 (2002). What it does give you is a right of access to your education records, which, used early, is one of the most valuable tools available: it produces the record before the school knows what you intend to do with it.

What a court can actually give you

This is where expectations most need adjusting. What students want is reinstatement — the seat back, the record corrected, the degree finished. Courts can order that, but it is equitable and discretionary, and against a genuinely academic judgment it is hard to get.

Money damages are narrower than people assume. Under the federal anti-discrimination statutes that reach schools through federal funding, Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U.S. 212 (2022), holds that emotional distress damages are not available — which removes what many students assume is the core of their case. Punitive damages are unavailable as well. Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181 (2002). What remains is economic loss, equitable relief, and, where a statute allows it, attorney’s fees.

One more hard truth belongs here rather than buried in a fee discussion. Schools know students want reinstatement rather than money, and some use it: litigate slowly, then, shortly before a ruling they expect to lose, offer the seat back with nothing attached. That is a real outcome and often a good one for the student — but it dictates how a case must be structured and funded from the start, and a lawyer who does not raise it with you at the outset is not being straight with you.

Emergency relief

Where a dismissal is days from taking effect, the tool is a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction holding the status quo. The standard is demanding: likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of equities, public interest. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008).

Two practical points. It is enormously front-loaded — effectively the whole case compressed into days, with whatever record you have. And delay is fatal to it: a student who waits weeks has undercut the irreparable-harm argument by their own conduct. If timing is short, that changes the sequence of everything, which is why the first thing I ask about is dates.

What has to be in place before anything is filed

• The internal process, generally exhausted. Courts are unreceptive to a student who skipped the appeal the handbook provided.
• Deadlines. Limitations periods vary by claim and forum, and some claims carry short pre-suit notice requirements. A strong claim filed late is not a claim.
• Immunity and the right defendant. Public universities raise sovereign-immunity defenses that shape what relief is available and against whom. Naming the wrong defendant wastes months.
• A record that proves it. Not your account — documents. The policy in force at the time, the notice, the evidence file, the decision letter, the emails.
• Preservation. Records get purged and accounts deactivated after separation. Preserving your file, and where warranted putting the school on notice to preserve its own, is an early step.

Fees, costs, and time

Litigation is quoted case by case. Depending on the claim, the forum, the likely recovery, and whether the statute allows fee-shifting, the structure may be hourly, a hybrid of a reduced hourly rate plus a contingency, or — for the strongest cases — a contingency. Court costs are separate from attorney’s fees in every structure. Fees paid for earlier work on the same matter can be credited toward litigation where the written agreement says so. Full detail is on the fees and scope of services page.

A case that goes the distance takes a year or more, often considerably longer. Most resolve before that. Neither fact should be the reason you file or the reason you do not.

How to have this evaluated

Not a call about whether you have a case — nobody can answer that without the documents. The starting point is the Full Read + Game Plan: you send the entire record, I read all of it against the school’s own rules and the law, and then we sit down, with no time limit, and I tell you what is actually there — frequently including that the better route is not a courtroom.

Email zachary@astudentslawyer.com with a short summary, the dates, and any deadline, or call (561) 308-9119. If a deadline is close, say so first — it changes the order in which everything gets done.

Download the one-page overview (PDF) — what goes to court, how the Full Read + Game Plan works, and what is handled on campus.

Common questions

Can I sue my school for being treated unfairly?

Not by itself. A claim requires a specific broken duty — a constitutional protection at a public institution, a federal anti-discrimination statute, or a promise in the school’s own policies — plus a record proving it and a remedy a court can grant.

Do I have to finish the school’s appeal process first?

Generally yes, and skipping it damages the case. It matters for a second reason too: the record you build during the appeal becomes the evidentiary record of the lawsuit. An appeal written with litigation in mind is a materially different document from one written without.

Can I sue a private university?

Yes, on different theories. Private schools are not state actors, so constitutional due process generally does not apply. What reaches them is contract — the handbook and published policies — and the federal statutes that attach to federal funding: Section 504, the ADA, Title IX, and Title VI.

Is there an alternative to suing?

Often. A complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights costs nothing to file, produces no damages, and moves on its own schedule — but for certain accommodation and discrimination problems it creates pressure a lawsuit cannot, and faster. Choosing between the two, or sequencing them, is part of the analysis.

Will suing make things worse?

It can. It ends informal resolution, it is public unless the court permits otherwise, and it can affect how other institutions view an applicant. Those costs are real and belong in the decision. They are also not a reason to accept an unlawful outcome.

Can my parents pay for the litigation?

Yes. Third-party payment is common and permitted. You remain the client, your informed consent is required, and whoever pays neither directs the representation nor receives your confidential information without your say.

Will you talk about my case publicly?

No. Nothing about your matter goes on this website, in marketing, or anywhere else without your informed consent, and a case being a public court record does not change that.

Attorney advertising. This page is general information only — it is not legal advice and not an offer of representation. Descriptions of pending matters are general and identify no client or institution. Contacting me does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Zachary Gaynor, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 125534, Boca Raton, Florida.