Rasmussen University Student Defense Lawyer

Students at Rasmussen University’s Wausau campus reach me at three points: when a faculty member reports an academic integrity violation, when the university moves to suspend or dismiss for conduct, and after a nursing or health sciences program pulls a student from a clinical placement. Each of those runs on a short written clock, and each is decided on a record that is built in the first few days.

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

Rasmussen University is a private, for-profit institution. That single fact sets the frame. A private college is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim against it and no constitutional right to notice and a hearing. What you have instead is the promise the school made in writing. The catalog, the policies it incorporates and the programmatic handbook are the terms, and the theory of the case is breach of contract, sitting alongside the federal statutes that reach private schools that take federal money: Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA. Accreditor requirements are a fourth source of leverage.

The Wisconsin layer is mostly a story about what does not apply. Wisconsin’s strong student protections sit in the administrative code: ch. UWS 14 for academic misconduct and ch. UWS 17 for non-academic misconduct. Ch. UWS 17 gives a student facing suspension or expulsion an advisor who may be a lawyer and who may question witnesses and speak on the student’s behalf, and requires clear and convincing proof before those sanctions issue. None of that reaches Rasmussen. “Institution” is defined at Wis. Admin. Code § UWS 17.02(10) as any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board, which means the UW universities and their branches. Rasmussen is neither a UW campus nor one of the sixteen technical colleges that operate under Wis. Stat. ch. 38 and Wis. Stat. ch. 38. Its rules are its own.

Be equally honest about the case law. No published Wisconsin appellate decision settles whether a private college’s handbook is an enforceable contract, so anyone who says Wisconsin law guarantees you a hearing at a for-profit college is guessing. The ch. 227 route to court is closed here too: Wis. Stat. § 227.52 review runs against an agency, and the Board of Regents is the agency, not Rasmussen. A Rasmussen case is an internal appeal first, then a contract action or a federal civil rights claim. That makes the campus record close to everything.

Where do Rasmussen University cases come from?

Wausau is Rasmussen’s only remaining Wisconsin campus; Green Bay is gone. The local enrollment figure is 923, and it is worth knowing what that number is: the Wisconsin figure reported to the Educational Approval Program at the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services, not a national headcount. Rasmussen is built around nursing and health sciences, and that is where the consequential cases come from.

One thing matters before you read a word of policy. The conduct and academic policies that govern Wausau are not Wausau documents. They are served from the American Public University System catalog, a system-wide publication covering four institutions and a campus directory organized by state, authorized by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and authorized to operate by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. You are reading a national document. The only state-specific provision in the entire conduct policy is one addressed to Florida campus students about the Safety in Private Spaces Act. There is no Wisconsin-specific conduct rule in it at all.

The stakes are program stakes. The conduct policy says in terms that conduct and dismissal guidelines for School of Nursing students and students in select School of Health Sciences programs live in each programmatic handbook, provided at orientation. The document that will actually be used against a nursing student is not the one published on the web. And the sanction is durable: both policies say a student dismissed for misconduct may not reenroll. In a sequenced clinical program that is not a delay, it is an ending, which is why the sanction is usually worth more attention than the finding. The specifics are on the pages about nursing dismissal and professionalism findings.

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

Rasmussen runs at least three tracks, and the letter tells you which one you are in. An allegation of cheating, collusion, plagiarism, fabrication, impersonation or sabotage is an Academic Integrity Policy matter, decided by faculty or the Academic Integrity Committee, with its own five-business-day appeal ladder. Conduct the university treats as detrimental to the educational environment runs under the separate Conduct and Dismissal Policy, which publishes no appeal route at all. A nursing or health sciences student may be in a third track, under a programmatic handbook. Sexual misconduct is a Title IX matter and follows neither.

Answering in the wrong track spends the only response you get, and the five-day clocks do not restart. Match the letter to the track first: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, or academic dismissal and suspension.

What should you do first?

Pull the catalog version in force on your incident date rather than a summary, and ask in writing for the programmatic handbook if you are in nursing or a health sciences program. Get the syllabus and the assignment instructions. If artificial intelligence is part of the allegation, get the Generative Artificial Intelligence Learning Assessment and Research Policy too: the integrity policy does not define the AI rules, it incorporates that document by reference, and the accusation cannot be assessed without it.

Then read the appeal section before you write anything. Rasmussen limits what an appeal may argue: the stated basis is a claim that the act of academic misconduct was not committed, and the policy says attempting to justify the act is not an acceptable basis for an appeal. A well-meant letter explaining why it happened is, by the policy’s own terms, not an appeal. Preserve drafts, version history, repository commits, learning management timestamps, group chats and clinical evaluations before anything deletes. Do not sit for an interview before you know what is actually alleged. If the accusation rests on a similarity score or an AI detector, start with the page on AI accusations.

What does Rasmussen University’s own policy actually say?

The two published policies are uneven. The academic integrity policy is detailed and gives real day-counts. The conduct policy gives almost nothing. This list says which is which.

• Conduct office: none is named. The published document is the Conduct and Dismissal Policy in the system catalog, which reserves to the university the right to suspend or dismiss any student whose conduct is detrimental to the educational environment, without naming the office that decides.
• Governing policy: the Conduct and Dismissal Policy and the Academic Integrity Policy and Honor Code, both published in the American Public University System catalog rather than in a Wisconsin campus handbook. No Wisconsin administrative code applies; chs. UWS 14 and 17 reach only the UW universities, and the Wis. Stat. ch. 38 reaches only the technical colleges.
• Academic integrity: the Academic Integrity Policy and Honor Code, which defines cheating, collusion, fabrication, falsification, forgery, impersonation, plagiarism and sabotage, and expressly covers misuse of generative AI. Violations are documented and cumulative, and corrective actions may be increased for past record and severity. Faculty may require a redo or award partial or zero credit; the Academic Integrity Committee may impose withdrawal from the course with a failing grade, or dismissal.
• Appeal window: for a faculty-imposed corrective action, five business days to appeal to the faculty member, then five business days from the faculty response to appeal to the Associate Vice President, Dean or Nurse Administrator, whose decision is final. For an Academic Integrity Committee action, five business days to appeal to the Academic Appeals Committee, whose decision is final. For a conduct suspension or dismissal, no campus-specific day-count located, and the conduct policy publishes no appeal route; ask in writing for the deadline and keep the answer.
• Standard of proof: neither policy publishes one. No campus-specific standard of proof located, and no Wisconsin rule supplies a default for a private college. Ask in writing what standard the decision-maker will apply before you respond.
• Advisor: neither policy states whether you may bring an advisor, whether the advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak. No campus-specific advisor rule located. The Wisconsin guarantee that a lawyer may speak for a student facing suspension or expulsion is Wis. Admin. Code § UWS 17.12(4)(b), and it does not reach a private for-profit college, so nothing fills the gap.
• Academic standing: the academic integrity policy sits in the catalog’s academic policies and standards section but sets no grade-point threshold, probation rule or standing dismissal rule. No campus-specific academic standing policy located at the published URL; request the current standards of academic progress in writing and keep the response.

One access problem is worth naming. The programmatic handbooks governing nursing and select health sciences students are, by the catalog’s own description, handed out at orientation. A policy you cannot reach today is not adequate published notice. Request the edition in force on your incident date in writing and keep the response.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Rasmussen University — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, where I am admitted to the bar. Marathon County sits in that district, so no pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney is needed. A contract claim against Rasmussen is a state-law claim, and because Rasmussen is private there is no Fourteenth Amendment theory. Very few of these matters reach a courtroom. 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 a policy Rasmussen does not publish. Some tracks allow an advisor who may be an attorney, some allow a silent advisor, some exclude outside people entirely. Reading the current policy, and asking in writing where it is silent, settles it. Once a decision is final the questions change 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:

• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin

Common questions about Rasmussen University student cases

Do the UWS 14 and UWS 17 rules apply at Rasmussen University?

No. Those chapters are Board of Regents rules, and Wis. Admin. Code section UWS 17.02(10) defines institution as any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board. That means the UW universities and their branches. Rasmussen is a private for-profit college, so the clear and convincing burden, the fifteen and forty-five day hearing clocks, and the right to an advisor who may be a lawyer and may speak do not apply. Rasmussen is also not a technical college, so the TCS code series does not apply either.

How long do I have to appeal an academic integrity finding at Rasmussen?

Five business days, and the route depends on who decided. A corrective action imposed by faculty is appealed first to the faculty member within five business days of the violation determination, and then, within five business days of the faculty response, to the Associate Vice President, Dean or Nurse Administrator, whose decision is final. A corrective action imposed by the Academic Integrity Committee, including course failure or dismissal, is appealed within five business days to the Academic Appeals Committee, whose decision is final.

Is the policy governing a Wausau student a Wisconsin document?

No. Rasmussen serves its conduct and academic integrity policies from the American Public University System catalog, a system-wide publication covering campuses in several states. There is no Wisconsin-specific conduct rule in it; the only state-specific provision in the conduct policy addresses Florida campus students. If you are in nursing or a select health sciences program, the operative document is a programmatic handbook distributed at orientation rather than the catalog, and you should ask for it in writing.

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.