Clarkson College Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Clarkson College at three points: when a program director asks them to a meeting about a Code of Conduct issue, when a clinical or classroom problem turns into a professionalism concern, and after the Registrar mails a letter placing them on academic probation. Each carries a short clock, and each is decided largely on a written record built in the first few days.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Clarkson College?

Clarkson College is a private nonprofit institution, so it is not a state actor. There is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim against it, and Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), does not apply of its own force. The theory is contract, built on the catalog, the handbook and the numbered policies, plus the federal statutes that reach any school taking federal money: Title IX, Title VI, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA, together with accreditor requirements.

Nebraska’s only student-discipline statute fails to reach this college for two separate reasons. Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 85-601 to 85-605 require a public hearing and a written order containing findings of fact entered within thirty days, but they cover only force, threat of force and seizure of institutional property, and § 85-605 defines the covered governing body as the Board of Regents or the Community College Board of Governors. Clarkson is neither. Outside that narrow band Nebraska sets no minimum procedural rights for any campus, so the college’s own policy supplies the process.

The controlling case was litigated against this college. In Armstrong v. Clarkson College, 297 Neb. 595, 901 N.W.2d 1 (2017), a nurse anesthesia student won a one million dollar verdict at trial and the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed and remanded. Three holdings survive. First, the student-institution relationship can rest on an implied-in-fact contract whose terms come from handbooks and policy manuals, proved by the surrounding facts and circumstances, the conduct of the parties or a general reasonableness standard, and that is generally a jury question. Second, an argument that academic deference applies “is not an affirmative defense, but instead relates to the proper standard for reviewing a plaintiff’s claim,” and “not every decision by an academic institution is subject to deference.” Third, and most useful to a student right now, where a university provides a mandatory grievance procedure, enforcement of contract rights is conditioned on using it. Exhaustion is a condition precedent. Miss the internal appeal and the claim is gone. See breach of contract.

Where do Clarkson College cases come from?

About 1,121 students are enrolled at the campus on South 42nd Street in Omaha, and Clarkson is an educational partner of Nebraska Medicine. Almost everything it teaches leads to a licensed or credentialed role: Nursing, Radiography and Medical Imaging, Physical Therapist Assistant, Health Information Management, Healthcare Administration and Management, Community Health, Education and Leadership, Psychology and General Studies.

That is why the caseload looks the way it does. The serious outcomes come out of clinical sites rather than classrooms: a medication error, a supervisor evaluation, a dress-code or attendance violation at a placement, a background check or drug screen under Policy SW-23, or a health and safety requirement under SW-7. The college says so itself in the code, warning that a student’s behavior may affect their career and that violating certain laws may jeopardize the ability to obtain professional licensure. Classroom allegations tend to be integrity referrals, increasingly built on software output rather than a witness.

The stakes are sequence and licensure. Health-sciences courses run in cohorts, so a one-term separation is usually a year, and a recorded finding is something you disclose to a licensing board for years afterward. That is why the sanction and its wording are often more negotiable, and more important, than the finding. If you are in the nursing track see nursing dismissal; if the concern is framed as behavior rather than competence, see professionalism findings.

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

The label on the letter picks the office, the clock and the protections. Clarkson runs these as separate numbered policies: Code of Conduct SW-18, Academic Integrity SW-25, Academic Probation AA-20 and Dismissal AA-24, Sexual Misconduct SW-27, and Satisfactory Academic Progress for Financial Aid Eligibility FA-21. The unusual feature of SW-18 is who decides first. It is not a hearing board and not the dean of students; it is your own program director, the person who runs the program you are trying to stay in.

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

What should you do first?

Pull SW-18 and SW-25 in the versions in force on your incident date, and read the due process section before the violations section. Ask for the completed Student Code of Conduct Conference Form, which is Attachment A to the policy, together with the evidence attached to it. That form is the charging document, and you are entitled to know what is on it before you answer.

Then move on the calendar. The program director is required to schedule your meeting within five business days of receiving the form, and if you fail to meet by the deadline the standing decision becomes final, so do not let the meeting slide while you decide what to do. Collect the syllabus, the assignment instructions, the clinical handbook and any site evaluations. Preserve drafts, version history, learning-management timestamps and group chats. Clarkson has a written generative AI policy, IT-17, so if the allegation rests on a detector score, get the syllabus rule and the policy text together and read the page on AI accusations.

What does Clarkson College’s own policy actually say?

More than most schools this size, and it is published in the catalog rather than a portal. Where the code is silent, this list says so instead of guessing.

• Conduct office: the Code of Conduct, Policy SW-18. The first decision belongs to your program director, who meets you, decides whether you are responsible, applies the department’s disciplinary procedure and documents it on the conference form. A copy then goes to the Vice President of Enrollment and Retention and to the Behavior Intervention Team.
• Governing policy: SW-18, with sexual misconduct carved out to SW-27 and referred to the Title IX Coordinator, and computing and generative AI use covered by IT-2, IT-4 and IT-17. There is no state or system code behind these; a private Nebraska college writes its own.
• Academic integrity: Academic Integrity, Policy SW-25, published in the same catalog. SW-18 separately lists acts of dishonesty, including furnishing false information and forgery or alteration of college documents, as conduct violations. No campus-specific procedure for SW-25 located, so ask in writing which policy your allegation is being processed under before you answer it.
• Appeal window: fourteen business days, not including holidays or semester breaks, to submit a written appeal to the Vice President of Enrollment and Retention. Two earlier clocks run first: the complainant files the conference form within five business days of identifying the event, and the program director schedules the meeting within five business days of receiving it. If a violation occurs within two weeks of graduation the Vice President designs a due process timeline for it. The Code of Conduct Committee’s decision is final; the policy states there is no appeal from it.
• Standard of proof: two, at two stages. The program director decides whether you are “more likely than not” responsible. On appeal the Code of Conduct Committee guidelines state that there is no presumption of guilt and that “the standard of evidence used shall be ‘clear and convincing.’” The committee votes by confidential ballot and a simple majority decides.
• Advisor: no campus-specific advisor rule located. SW-18 does not say whether you may bring an advisor to the program director meeting, whether that advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak. Ask before the meeting and keep the answer.
• Academic standing: Academic Probation, Policy AA-20. An undergraduate who falls below a 2.0 cumulative grade point average after attempting twelve credit hours at Clarkson goes on academic probation for a period not to exceed one year, and is dismissed from the academic program if the average is not restored in that time; for graduate students the figures are 3.0 and six credit hours. Probation appears on the transcript, the Registrar sends the letter, and programs place probationary students on academic contracts. Dismissal is its own policy, AA-24, and Student Petition for Reconsideration is SW-22.
• Title IX and equal opportunity: the Title IX Coordinator, under Sexual Misconduct Policy SW-27 and Equal Opportunity and Non-Discrimination Policy SW-1.
• Disability accommodations: Student Accommodations, Policy SW-2.

Two details worth knowing early. The college can impose an interim suspension and can act on a felony charge before any court decides it, so a criminal case and a campus case can run at once and the campus one usually moves faster. And sanctions are kept in a confidential record rather than the permanent academic record; on graduation they may be expunged after five years, except for residence hall dismissal or college suspension or dismissal, which is exactly why the wording of a negotiated sanction matters.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Clarkson College — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, where I am admitted to the bar. No pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney are needed. Because Clarkson is private there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim, and the contract claim under Armstrong is a state-law claim. Very few of these matters end in court. The campus record decides them:

• 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

Armstrong makes the internal appeal the whole game here. Because exhaustion is a condition precedent, the fourteen-business-day letter to the Vice President is not a formality to be dashed off; it is the document a court will one day read to decide whether you kept your rights alive.

Other Nebraska colleges

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 Nebraska colleges:

• College of Saint Mary
• Hastings College
• Little Priest Tribal College
• Nebraska Methodist College
• Ricketts Great Books College
• Summit Christian College

Common questions about Clarkson College student cases

What does Armstrong v. Clarkson College mean for my case?

Armstrong v. Clarkson College, 297 Neb. 595, 901 N.W.2d 1 (2017), is the leading Nebraska student case and it was litigated against this college. A nurse anesthesia student won a one million dollar verdict and the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed it. Three holdings survive and matter. Handbooks and policy manuals can form an implied-in-fact contract. Academic deference is a standard for reviewing the claim, not an affirmative defense, and not every academic decision gets it. And completing the mandatory grievance procedure is a condition precedent to enforcing the contract.

How long do I have to appeal a Clarkson Code of Conduct decision?

Fourteen business days, not counting holidays or semester breaks, to submit a written appeal to the Vice President of Enrollment and Retention. Miss it and the program director’s decision stands. Two earlier clocks matter just as much. The complainant must file the Student Code of Conduct Conference Form within five business days of identifying the event, and the program director must schedule your meeting within five business days of receiving it. If you do not meet the program director by the deadline, the standing decision is final.

What standard of proof does Clarkson College use in a conduct case?

It depends on who is deciding, and the difference is worth knowing. At the first stage the program director decides whether you are, more likely than not, responsible, which is a preponderance standard. On appeal, the Code of Conduct Committee meeting guidelines direct that there is no presumption of guilt and that the standard of evidence used shall be clear and convincing. The committee votes by confidential ballot, a simple majority decides, and its decision is final with no further appeal.

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 Nebraska 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 Nebraska and does not advise on Nebraska state law.