Lakeland University Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Lakeland University at three points: after Campus Safety or Residence Life files an incident report and a conduct officer asks for a meeting, after an instructor reports academic dishonesty, and, usually too late, after a satisfactory academic progress decision puts enrollment or aid at risk. All three run on short clocks. At Lakeland one of those clocks is measured in hours.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Lakeland University?

Lakeland is a private nonprofit university, and that single fact reorganises the whole case. A private university is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim against it. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), and Regents of the University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985), set the floor at public campuses and do not reach Plymouth. What does reach Lakeland is contract, the federal civil rights statutes and its accreditor’s requirements.

The contract is the handbook and the catalog. The promise the university makes about how it will decide your case is the promise you can hold it to, which is why the exact wording of the current policy is the whole game and why a departure from that wording matters more here than an argument about fairness in the abstract. Alongside it sit Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 and the ADA, which apply to a private university on the same terms as a public one because they follow the federal money rather than state action.

Nothing in the Wisconsin Administrative Code helps. Chapters UWS 14 and UWS 17, the Board of Regents rules that give University of Wisconsin students a ten-day hearing request, clear and convincing proof before suspension or expulsion, and an advisor who may be a lawyer and may speak, apply only to the UW universities and their branches; UWS 17.02(10) defines an institution as “any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board,” and Lakeland is not one. Be honest about the rest, too: no published Wisconsin appellate decision sets out how a private university handbook is enforced as a contract in a student discipline case, and the review machinery students read about, ch. 227 petitions and common-law certiorari under Ottman v. Town of Primrose, 2011 WI 18, ¶35, runs against public bodies. Against Lakeland the state-law theory is an ordinary breach of contract claim.

Where do Lakeland University cases come from?

Lakeland enrolls roughly 2,813 students on a residential campus outside Plymouth, with athletics, Greek life, residence halls and a cooperative education program that places students with employers while they study.

The sanction list tells you where the cases start. Housing probation, space and location restrictions, loss of guest privileges, restriction from student organizations or athletics, housing reassignment, housing suspension, trespass and vehicle towing all sit on it, which is the profile of a residential campus where most files begin with a residence hall or a parking incident rather than a classroom. The citizenship sanction grid escalates by offense number, so a second or third file is not treated as a fresh start.

The stakes still run past the campus. A housing suspension for a residential student is often the end of enrollment in practice, whatever the paper says. A separation from a sequenced program is usually a year, because courses run on a rotation. And a conduct record can follow a student into a cooperative education placement, a transfer application or a licensure question years later, which is why the sanction is usually more negotiable, and more important, than the finding.

Which process are you in, and why does that matter?

The label on your letter picks the office, the clock and the protections, and at Lakeland the split is unusually clean. The student handbook is the non-academic code: its two heaviest sanctions are named non-academic suspension and non-academic dismissal, and its honesty provision is about telling the truth in a conduct case rather than about plagiarism. Academic integrity and academic standing live in the academic catalog and the satisfactory academic progress policy. Sexual misconduct runs through a separate route.

Answering in the wrong track spends the one response you get. Match the letter first: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, Title IX, or academic dismissal and suspension.

What should you do first?

Move on the day the letter arrives, because the appeal window is counted in hours. Get the current handbook in the version in force on your incident date, and read the appeals section before the sanctions section. Then collect the syllabus, the assignment instructions and any lab or placement policy that applies.

Put the dates in writing. Email the conduct officer and the Vice President of Student Affairs to confirm your response deadline, your appeal deadline and how the appeal must be filed, and keep the reply. Ask for the incident report and anything else the decision-maker will see. Preserve messages, drafts, version history, learning management timestamps and photographs before anything auto-deletes. Do not sit for the initial discussion with a conduct officer before you know what the report says, because that conversation is where responsibility is accepted and the sanction is delivered.

What does Lakeland University’s own policy actually say?

Lakeland publishes a detailed conduct process and almost nothing about the academic side. This list says which is which.

• Conduct office: the Lakeland student handbook, run out of the Vice President of Student Affairs Office. Reports come from Residence Life or Campus Safety, the Director for Campus Safety reviews, categorises and investigates, and the Conduct Coordinator assigns the file to a conduct officer by incident type and severity.
• Governing policy: the Student Code of Conduct in the student handbook, a contract document rather than a regulation. Chapters UWS 14 and UWS 17 do not apply to a private university.
• Academic integrity: no academic integrity procedure located in the handbook. The handbook’s honesty provision addresses truthfulness during the conduct process. Request the academic integrity policy and its appeal route in writing from the academic dean and keep the response.
• Appeal window: 48 hours. A formal request to appeal must be sent to the Vice President of Student Affairs within 48 hours of written notification of the sanction, the decision follows within seven business days, and it is final. The four grounds are procedural error, including a violation of your rights during the investigation, new evidence you could not have presented earlier, substantial bias, and an inappropriate sanction, which can change only the sanction. The handbook contradicts itself on the figure, showing 72 hours on the conduct flowchart, so work to 48 hours and confirm in writing.
• Standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence. The Conduct Coordinator may find you not responsible, find you responsible on a preponderance, or refer the case to a formal hearing.
• Hearing: the Formal Hearing Board is the Chief Conduct Coordinator, who does not vote, one staff member, one faculty member and the student government president or vice president. You may bring forward information that could affect the outcome, the board deliberates without you, and you are recalled for the finding.
• Advisor: no advisor or support-person provision located. The handbook does not say whether you may bring anyone to a conduct meeting or a formal hearing, whether that person may be a lawyer, or whether they may speak. UWS 17.12(4)(b), which gives a University of Wisconsin respondent “the right to be accompanied by an advisor of the respondent’s choice. The advisor may be a lawyer,” has no application here. Ask before the meeting, in writing.
• Academic standing: the student rights and responsibilities page tells you that you are responsible for knowing how the university determines satisfactory academic progress and what happens if you are not making it, and names the university’s satisfactory academic progress policy and the separate financial aid policy. It publishes no grade point average threshold, no completion rate, no appeal route and no deadline. No campus-specific day-count located; request both policies in writing from the Office of Financial Aid and the registrar, and treat the academic appeal and the aid appeal as two deadlines.

Two practical notes. The handbook is published as a scanned document rather than searchable text, so cite it by page number and keep a copy of the version you were given; a policy that changes between your incident and your hearing is an argument, but only if you can prove what it said. And the handbook uses more than one title for the senior student affairs officer, naming both a Vice President of Student Affairs and a Vice President for Campus Life and Dean for Students, so confirm who actually decides your appeal before you address it to anyone.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Lakeland University — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which covers Milwaukee and the eastern counties. I am admitted to the bar of the Western District of Wisconsin and handle Eastern District matters together with counsel admitted there. A breach of contract claim against a private university is a state-law claim, and there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim because Lakeland is not a state actor. Most of these matters never reach court. What decides them is the campus record:

• Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
• Preparing your account, your documents and your questions
• Testing whether the school followed its own published procedure
• Scrutinising software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
• Helping with the written response and the appeal, where policy allows
• Serving as your advisor where the process permits one
• Negotiating sanction terms, notations and disclosure language

What a lawyer can do in the room turns on the university’s policy, and Lakeland’s does not answer the question, so it has to be asked. With a 48-hour appeal window the useful work is often done before anyone files anything, and once a decision is final the questions narrow to the record and the grounds, covered under appeals and court review.

Other Wisconsin universities

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Wisconsin universities:

• Lawrence University
• Maranatha Baptist University
• Marian University
• Marquette University
• Mount Mary University
• Ottawa University Milwaukee

Common questions about Lakeland University student cases

How long do I have to appeal a Lakeland University conduct decision?

Forty-eight hours. The handbook requires a formal request for appeal to the Vice President of Student Affairs within 48 hours of written notification of the sanction, and says the appeal decision comes within seven business days and is final. The grounds are procedural error, new evidence, substantial bias, and an inappropriate sanction, and the last of those can change only the sanction. The handbook is not consistent on the figure: its conduct flowchart shows 72 hours. Work to 48 hours and confirm the deadline in writing the day your letter arrives.

What standard of proof does Lakeland University use in a conduct case?

Preponderance of the evidence. If you do not accept responsibility, the Conduct Coordinator reviews the incident report and your statements and may find you not responsible, find you responsible on a preponderance of the evidence, or send the matter to a formal hearing. The Formal Hearing Board is the Chief Conduct Coordinator, who does not vote, one staff member, one faculty member and the student government president or vice president. Preponderance means more likely than not, which is a far lower bar than the clear and convincing proof a University of Wisconsin campus must meet.

Does the Lakeland University student handbook cover academic dishonesty?

No. The handbook is the non-academic conduct code, which is why its two most serious sanctions are labeled non-academic suspension and non-academic dismissal. Its honesty section concerns telling the truth during a conduct case, not plagiarism or cheating. The academic integrity policy and the academic standing rules live in the academic catalog and the satisfactory academic progress policy instead. If you are accused of academic dishonesty, ask in writing for the policy that governs it and for its appeal deadline before you answer anything.

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. Other campuses are covered on the Wisconsin student defense page.

This page is informational and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the institution named on it.

Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is licensed to practice law in Florida and is admitted to the bars of the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, and the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Federal court admission is not a license to practice the law of the state in which the court sits; he is not licensed in Wisconsin and does not advise on Wisconsin state law.