Southwestern College Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Southwestern College at three points: when a faculty member submits a Dispositional Referral and a support plan appears, when something goes wrong at a practicum or internship site, and when the Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs issues a suspension or an expulsion. All three turn on the same record, and the record is usually built before anyone calls it discipline.

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

Southwestern College is a small private nonprofit graduate school in Santa Fe, so it is not a state actor and there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim here. The federal claims that reach a private college are Title IX, Title VI and Section 504 and the ADA. Everything else is contract: the catalog is the promise, and what it says is what the college owes you.

New Mexico law makes that contract argument harder than students expect. In Ruegsegger v. Board of Regents of Western New Mexico University, 2007-NMCA-030, 141 N.M. 306, 154 P.3d 681, the Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a contract claim, holding that even though a student handbook “sets out a general framework of policies,” it was “not persuaded that the language contractually obligates” the institution to conduct any specific type of investigation or to impose specific discipline. Handbook-as-contract is weak standing alone in New Mexico. What works is a specific promise the college made and did not keep, quoted from the catalog and matched to what happened.

Two other things follow from the college being private. Exhaustion matters: in Herald v. Board of Regents of UNM, 2015-NMCA-104, a contract claim was lost for failure to complete an internal grievance procedure, so use every internal step and document that you did. And the state statutes that reach campus process do not apply here. NMSA 1978 § 21-1-51, the 2024 affirmative-consent law, governs public institutions, and the governmental immunity wall of NMSA 1978 § 37-1-23 that defeated the students in Avalos v. Board of Regents of New Mexico State University, No. 35,251 (N.M. Ct. App. July 26, 2017), applies only to public institutions — one of the few places a private-school student is better off. No New Mexico appellate court has applied administrative review to a university student-conduct decision, so the campus record is effectively the whole case.

Where do Southwestern College cases come from?

Southwestern College enrolls roughly 289 students and offers master’s degrees in counselling and art therapy: an MA in Counseling, an MA in Art Therapy/Counseling and an MA in Art Therapy for Clinical Professionals, with certificate programs alongside. Most students complete practicum field training at Tierra Nueva Counseling Center, the college’s own clinic.

That makes this a licensure school, and it changes what is at stake. Graduates may practice in New Mexico under supervision as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and, after 3,000 hours of client contact and the required exams, are eligible for the Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor designation, with the Licensed Professional Art Therapist designation open to art therapy graduates. The New Mexico Counseling and Therapy Practice Board is the licensing authority, so a finding about your professional fitness is not a school problem that ends at graduation.

The two consequential findings here are professionalism and removal from clinical training, and the catalog is explicit about both. It says the college “is committed to remediating or preventing those students who are lacking in these professional competencies from becoming counselors and art therapists,” and it asks students to limit, suspend or terminate coursework and clinical field training where their personal state may impair professional capacity. Expulsion carries restriction from the campus and from Tierra Nueva Counseling Center, which in practice ends the clinical hours. If a professionalism or fitness concern has been raised about you, start with the page on professionalism findings.

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

Southwestern runs a referral system before it runs a disciplinary one, and that is the most important structural fact on this page. A Student Support Referral, an Academic Referral or a Dispositional Referral is described as supportive and “not disciplinary in nature” — but the catalog adds that failure to adequately address the concerns on a referral may lead to suspension, probation or expulsion. The referral, and the support plan you are asked to sign, is where the case is decided. By the time discipline is initiated, the file already exists.

Match your letter to the track: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, academic dismissal and suspension, or Title IX, which at this college runs through the same complaint form and the same office as everything else.

What should you do first?

Get the catalog edition that applies to you and read the disciplinary action, academic standing and appeal sections before you sign anything. Read the probation rule first, because it surprises people: the catalog says a student may not appeal being placed on academic probation. What you can appeal is the financial aid suspension that follows, and later a suspension or expulsion. Then collect the referral forms, the support plans, your syllabi and rubrics, your supervision notes and every written evaluation from practicum or internship.

Put the dates in writing. Ask the Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs for the deadline that applies to your letter, who decides, and a copy of the documentation in your Populi file. Sign nothing that recites facts you dispute; a signed support plan is a document about you that a later decision-maker will read. If a documented disability explains part of the record, register it with the ADA Coordinator early rather than after a decision — see 504 and ADA accommodations.

What does Southwestern College’s own policy actually say?

Southwestern publishes conduct and academic policy in one catalog, which is why both links here point to the same PDF. The academic side gives real numbers and one real day-count; the disciplinary side names the decision-maker but not the method.

• Conduct office: the Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs, who under the Southwestern College catalog initiates disciplinary action, often in collaboration with the Clinical Academic Programs Director.
• Governing policy: the student conduct and academic policy sections of the catalog. The listed grounds for sanction include academic dishonesty, breach of confidentiality, violation of the multiple relationships policy, sexual or inappropriate involvement with practicum or internship clients, practicing counselling or art therapy outside graduate training, and impairment.
• Academic integrity: not a separate track. Plagiarism, cheating, fraud and negligent misrepresentation are listed among the conduct grounds and are handled through the same disciplinary route.
• Sanctions: required student success coaching, slowing the pace of the program, a recommendation to increase personal therapy hours, a required mental health assessment, retaking a class, restorative action, relational repair, academic probation, suspension and expulsion.
• Appeal window: probation may not be appealed. A student suspended or expelled has 30 days to submit a written appeal to Academic Council, whose decision is final. A grade appeal runs on its own clock: contact the instructor within 3 days of the final grade posting and submit the petition within 2 weeks of it. Complaints and grievances, including Title IX complaints, go to the Title IX Coordinator, who is the Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs, and are answered in writing within thirty business days.
• Standard of proof: the catalog does not publish one. No campus-specific standard of proof located; ask in writing which standard the decision-maker will apply, and keep the answer.
• Advisor: the catalog does not say whether you may bring an advisor, whether that advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak at any stage. No campus-specific advisor rule located, and New Mexico law supplies no default at a private college. Ask before the meeting.
• Academic standing: published in the same catalog. Good standing requires a grade of B- or above in all courses, a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0, completion of at least 67 percent of coursework attempted, and the ability to integrate feedback from an Academic or Dispositional Referral. Falling short means academic probation, and failing to rectify it in the following quarter means no registration and possible suspension.
• Suspension and expulsion: suspension runs between one quarter and one year. Re-entry requires a meeting with the Clinical Academic Programs Associate Director and one Academic Council member, and the college may require documentation of physical, mental or emotional fitness from a licensed health care professional. An expelled student may not reapply, and expulsion carries restriction from the campus and from Tierra Nueva Counseling Center.
• Dispositional review: a Dispositional Referral Form assesses nine qualities, among them self-reflection, emotional regulation, empathy, openness to learning, boundaries, self-disclosure and cultural humility.
• Disability accommodations: the ADA Coordinator, through the Accessibility Services Registration Form.

One escalation route deserves careful reading. If the college has not responded within thirty business days, or the response is unsatisfactory, the catalog points students to the New Mexico Higher Education Department and to the Higher Learning Commission. But it also states that complaints about grades and student conduct violations will not be reviewed by NMHED. That is the practical reason the internal appeal is the case.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Southwestern College — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, where I am admitted to the bar, so no pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney is needed. There is no Fourteenth Amendment claim, because the college is private, and the contract claim is a state-law claim governed by Ruegsegger. Almost none 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

Two carry particular weight here. Testing whether the college followed its own procedure is the strongest available argument, because the catalog sets out referral steps, meetings and support plans in detail and every one is a promise. And negotiating terms matters more than usual: the difference between a suspension you can complete and an expulsion that closes Tierra Nueva to you is the difference between finishing the degree and not. Where a decision is final, see appeals and court review; where the theory is a broken promise in the catalog, see breach of contract.

Other New Mexico 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 New Mexico colleges:

• St. John’s College Santa Fe
• Brookline College Albuquerque
• Carrington College Albuquerque
• Diné College
• New Mexico Junior College
• Northern New Mexico College

Common questions about Southwestern College student cases

Can I appeal being placed on academic probation at Southwestern College?

No. The catalog states that a student may not appeal being placed on academic probation. What you can appeal is the financial aid suspension that follows, through the financial aid satisfactory academic progress policy, and later a suspension or expulsion, which goes to Academic Council. That is why the referral and support-plan stage matters: by the time probation is imposed the decision is not reviewable, and the documents that produced it were written weeks earlier.

How long do I have to appeal a suspension or expulsion at Southwestern College?

Thirty days. If the Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs suspends or expels you, the catalog gives you 30 days to submit a written appeal to Academic Council, and the Academic Council decision is final. Suspension runs between one quarter and one year, and re-entry requires a meeting with the Clinical Academic Programs Associate Director and an Academic Council member, with possible documentation of fitness from a licensed health care professional. A grade appeal runs on a different and much shorter clock.

Does a professionalism finding at Southwestern College affect counselling licensure?

It can. The programs lead to licensure through the New Mexico Counseling and Therapy Practice Board, and a dispositional or professionalism finding sits in your college record alongside any suspension or expulsion. The catalog does not say the college reports findings to a licensing board, so do not assume it does or does not; ask in writing. What is certain is that expulsion restricts you from the campus and from Tierra Nueva Counseling Center, which is where the clinical hours are earned.

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 New Mexico 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 New Mexico and does not advise on New Mexico state law.