Marian University Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Marian University at three points: when an instructor reports cheating or plagiarism, when the Dean of Students sends a conduct charge, and, usually too late, after a decision about aid standing or continuation in a program. All three run on short clocks, and at Marian the shortest is three business days.

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

Marian University is private and nonprofit. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim and no constitutional floor under the procedure it uses. The theory is contract: the handbook, the catalog and the published procedures are the promise, and the question is whether Marian kept its own. Federal statutes apply in full — Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 with the ADA — along with the requirements of the accreditor and of the boards that govern individual programs. More on a breach of contract claim against a university.

The Wisconsin layer here is largely about what does not apply. Wis. Admin. Code chs. UWS 14 and UWS 17 give students at the UW universities a hearing on ten days’ written request, clear and convincing proof before suspension or expulsion, and, at § UWS 17.12(4)(b), an advisor who “may be a lawyer” and who may speak for the student when suspension or expulsion is on the table. None of it reaches Marian. Section UWS 17.02(10) defines “institution” as “any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board” — the UW universities and their branches — so a private university is outside it, along with the chancellor appeal, Regents review and the thirty-day Wis. Stat. § 227.53 petition.

What fills the gap is thinner than most sites suggest, and I will not overstate it. No published Wisconsin appellate decision settles whether a private college’s handbook is an enforceable contract, and I do not cite one. Chapter 227 review runs against agencies and common-law certiorari against governmental bodies, so neither reaches a private university. That leaves an ordinary contract action in circuit court alongside the federal statutes, which makes the specificity of Marian’s own text the argument. That helps here, because the handbook is unusually specific: it names the hearing body, fixes the standard of proof, sets the appeal clock, and states exactly what a support person may and may not do.

Where do Marian University cases come from?

Marian enrolls roughly 1,246 students in Fond du Lac. It is a small university built around professional preparation, which changes the shape of a case: the faculty asked about you are the faculty who taught you, the record is short, and one evaluation can carry a decision.

If you are in a program with a clinical rotation, a practicum or a student-teaching placement — nursing and education are the obvious examples — that is where the most serious outcomes happen, and they rarely arrive labeled as discipline. A professionalism concern, a poor site evaluation, or a placement withdrawn by the site can end a credential with no conduct hearing and no three-day appeal clock attached. Those decisions are covered under professionalism findings.

The stakes follow from the sequencing. In a cohort program courses run once a year and placements are arranged a term ahead, so a one-term separation is usually a full year and sometimes the end of the credential. That is why the sanction is often more negotiable and more important than the finding, and why what gets written down deserves as much attention as the hearing itself.

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

The label on the letter picks the decision-maker, the clock and the protections. At Marian, non-academic conduct runs through the Dean of Students and the Student Conduct Board. Cheating and plagiarism fall under the Vice President for Academic Affairs instead. Sexual misconduct runs under the Title IX policy, which sits on the Marian website rather than in the handbook. Aid standing is a fourth track, decided by the Financial Aid Office on a calculation. See academic misconduct, conduct code charges, academic dismissal and suspension and SAP appeals.

The clocks are not the same length, and that catches people. A conduct appeal is due in three business days; a financial aid ineligibility appeal is due within three weeks of the notice date. Answering the wrong office can spend the only response you get in one track while the other expires unnoticed.

What should you do first?

Download the current handbook from Marian’s own site and read the appeal section before the prohibited conduct section. Three business days is short enough that the appeal has to be planned before the hearing, not after the letter. Then get the syllabus, the assignment instructions and any clinical or placement policy that applies. In a course-based allegation what the syllabus permitted on collaboration, notes and software is usually the strongest document in the file; in a placement case the site evaluations are.

Put the dates in writing. Ask the assigned conduct officer for your hearing date, your appeal deadline and a copy of the material the board will see. Preserve drafts, version history, learning management timestamps, group chats and clinical evaluations before anything auto-deletes. Because your support person cannot speak at the hearing, the written response and your own preparation are the case; do not sit down before you know what is alleged.

What does Marian University’s own policy actually say?

Marian publishes an unusually specific handbook and a separate aid-standing policy. Most fields below come from those documents. Where a field is not published, the list says so rather than guessing.

• Conduct office: the Office of Student Life and the Dean of Students, under the Marian University Student Handbook. The Dean of Students or a designee investigates; a five-member Student Conduct Board, chaired by a faculty or staff member and including students, hears the case; an Appeals Board mirrors that structure.
• Governing policy: the Marian University Student Code of Conduct, published in the student handbook. Marian is independent, so no system-wide code governs it, and chs. UWS 14 and 17 do not reach it.
• Academic integrity: cheating and plagiarism fall under the Vice President for Academic Affairs rather than the Dean of Students. The handbook states that jurisdiction but does not print the procedure. No campus-specific academic integrity day-count located; request the current policy in writing before you respond.
• Appeal window: three business days of the date on the sanction notification. The handbook also expects a student to schedule the conduct hearing with the assigned conduct officer within three business days. The handbook does not enumerate the grounds an appeal must satisfy. No published appeal grounds located; ask in writing what the Appeals Board will consider.
• Standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence, defined as whether “after a review of the available evidence it appears to the University that it is more likely than not that a violation of University policy occurred.”
• Advisor: you may have one support person present. The handbook says “the support person can be a parent, guardian, academic advisor, or an attorney,” and that the support person is “prohibited from addressing the board or participating in the hearing in any manner whatsoever.” An attorney may therefore attend and may not speak. This is stricter than § UWS 17.12(4)(b), which lets a lawyer-advisor speak at a UW campus when suspension or expulsion is at stake.
• Sanctions: disciplinary warning, educational or developmental sanctions, work assignment, restitution, fines, relocation, loss or limitation of privileges, no contact, residence hall probation, university probation, class-only probation, and dismissal from the residence halls or from the university.
• Emergency suspension: the handbook allows removal before a hearing where a student is believed to be a danger to others, where credible information shows “conduct representing a flagrant disregard for the safety or dignity of others,” or where the student is charged with a felony or another serious crime. See interim suspension.
• Academic and aid standing: published in the satisfactory academic progress policy. Undergraduates must reach a 1.5 GPA in the first payment period, 1.75 in the second, 1.9 in the third and 2.0 thereafter; graduate students must hold a 3.0. Undergraduates must complete at least two-thirds of the courses attempted cumulatively, and no student may receive federal aid beyond 150 percent of the published program length. A first failed evaluation brings Financial Aid Warning with aid for one more payment period; a second brings ineligibility. Only ineligibility may be appealed, by letter to the Director of Financial Aid, which “must be received in the Financial Aid Office no later than three weeks after the date on the letter notifying the student of his/her ineligibility.” It must give the basis of the appeal, how that basis affected your academics, and what has changed. An approved appeal produces Financial Aid Probation or an academic plan.
• Disability accommodations: Marian University Accessibility, within the Office of Student Success and Academic Support.

The handbook does not name a Title IX coordinator; it says those policies and procedures sit on the Marian website. Ask for the coordinator by name and for the current sexual misconduct procedure in writing, because that track has its own timelines and its own advisor rules, and the handbook does not govern it.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Marian 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, Fond du Lac 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. Because Marian is private and not a state actor, there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim, and the contract claim is a state-law claim. Very few of these matters end in 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

At Marian the handbook settles what a lawyer may do in the room, and the answer is: attend, and not speak. That makes preparation the whole of it — the written response, the exhibits, the questions you put yourself, and the sanction you will accept. Once a decision is final the questions shift to the record and the three-day clock, 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:

• Marquette University
• Mount Mary University
• Ottawa University Milwaukee
• Rasmussen University
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin

Common questions about Marian University student cases

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

Three business days from the date on the sanction notification. That is one of the shortest appeal windows published anywhere, and it runs from the date on the letter rather than from the day you read it. The handbook separately expects you to schedule the conduct hearing itself with the assigned conduct officer within three business days. Diary both clocks the day the first letter arrives, and file something in writing inside the window even if your full argument is not finished.

Can my lawyer speak for me at a Marian conduct hearing?

No. The handbook lets each accused student and each complainant have one person present for support, and it says that support person can be a parent, guardian, academic advisor, or an attorney. But that person is prohibited from addressing the board or participating in the hearing in any manner whatsoever. So the work has to be done before the hearing: the written response, the documents, the questions, and the account you give in your own voice. Wisconsin’s rule allowing a lawyer to speak binds UW campuses only.

What standard of proof does Marian University use?

Preponderance of the evidence. The handbook defines it as whether, after a review of the available evidence, it appears to the University that it is more likely than not that a violation of University policy occurred. That is the same standard UW campuses use for lesser sanctions, but it is lower than the clear and convincing proof section UWS 17.12(4)(f) requires before a UW university may suspend or expel. Marian is private, so that higher standard does not protect you against a dismissal here.

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.