HCI College Student Defense Lawyer

How do dismissal and appeal cases work at HCI College?

HCI College operates two Florida campuses: West Palm Beach, which is the main campus, and Fort Lauderdale. It is a private institution running nursing and allied-health programmes.

This is a private institution, so it is not a state actor: the Fourteenth Amendment does not reach it, and Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) — which gives students at Florida’s public colleges and state universities a legal representative who may question witnesses — does not apply. What governs is the school’s own published policy, enforced as a contract. In Florida that is not weak: Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences establishes that an institution which departs from its own procedures can face real damages.

HCI’s published catalog contains four provisions that, taken together, make its process unusually one-sided. They are worth knowing in detail, because each one is also a point of attack.

Legal counsel is barred outright

The catalog states that “Students are not permitted to bring or be represented by legal counsel during committee proceedings.” That is a flat ban with no carve-outs — not a silent-advisor rule, but exclusion.

The consequence is that everything decisive happens outside the room. The written statement, the documentary record, the identification of which policy provision applies and which step the college skipped, and the preparation of the student to deliver all of it personally. A lawyer who cannot attend can still do all of that, and can write the correspondence that creates a reviewable record. Being shut out of the hearing is a reason to get help earlier, not a reason to go without it.

Only the college gets a deadline, and its deadline is elastic

This is the provision most worth attacking. The catalog’s academic appeal section states no deadline for the student to file. It then gives the college 10 business days to decide, adding that “in complex situations, a decision may exceed the 10 business days.”

So the only stated clock binds the college, and it is expressly extendable. The student’s window is unwritten — which sounds generous and is the opposite. An unwritten limit is one the college can assert after the fact at whatever length suits it, and a student told their appeal is late has no published rule to point to. The practical answer is to file promptly and in writing regardless, and to ask the college in writing to state the deadline it is applying. If it cannot identify a published one, that fact belongs in the record.

“All appeal decisions are final and unappealable”

The catalog says exactly that. There is single-level review and no internal escalation. Combined with the counsel ban, it means the one submission a student is permitted to make, unassisted, is the whole of their process.

That closes the internal route and sharpens the Sharick question, which becomes the only question left: did the college follow its own published procedure. Where a school writes itself an unreviewable decision, compliance with process is what a court examines, and a documented departure is worth more precisely because no internal appeal exists to cure it.

Two strikes, and the conduct track has no appeal at all

A student who fails the same course twice is dismissed, and no course may be repeated more than once. That makes the first failure the decisive event, not the second — which is the opposite of how most students treat it. It also makes the characterisation of a withdrawal critical: a withdrawal recorded as a failing grade consumes a strike, and whether it should have been is a documentary question worth raising at the time.

On the conduct side the catalog is thinner still: investigation by administration, a written or in-person response, then sanctions up to dismissal — with counsel barred and no appeal described at all. So the two tracks conflict. The academic track has a defined if one-sided appeal; the conduct track appears to have none. Which track a matter is placed in therefore decides whether any review exists, and that placement is worth contesting in writing at the outset.

The nursing section adds two separate seven-calendar-day clocks, for submissions to the Director of Nursing and for test scheduling. Those are short, and they sit oddly beside an open-ended appeal window in the same catalog. Where a document contains both, work to the shortest.

One piece of Florida-specific context. Under Fla. Stat. section 464.019(5)(a)1 a nursing programme’s first-time NCLEX passage rate must be within 10 percentage points of the national average for comparable programmes, and section 464.019(5)(a)2 puts a programme below that floor for two consecutive years at risk of probation and loss of approval. A programme under that pressure has an institutional interest in who sits the exam, because a first-time passage rate can be improved by graduating fewer of the students judged least likely to pass. That is not unlawful, and it does not explain any particular dismissal, but it justifies examining the documents closely rather than accepting a progression decision at face value. The 2025 pass rates for every Florida programme below the benchmark are set out separately.

For reference, HCI’s Fort Lauderdale associate-degree code recorded a 56.52% first-time passage rate in 2025 across 23 candidates, against a statutory benchmark of 76.05%.

What should you do first?

File any appeal promptly and in writing rather than waiting to discover a deadline that is not published, and ask the college in writing which deadline it is applying and where that appears in the catalog. Establish in writing whether your matter is being handled on the academic or the conduct track. Preserve graded work, clinical evaluations, attendance records, correspondence, and any accommodation request with the reply. Check how any withdrawal was recorded, because it may be consuming a strike.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

  • Making the college state, in writing, the filing deadline it is applying, since the catalog publishes none for the student
  • Drafting the single submission the student is permitted to make, and preparing them to present it without counsel in the room
  • Contesting placement on the conduct track, which appears to carry no appeal at all
  • Challenging a withdrawal recorded as a failure where it consumes a strike under the two-failure rule
  • Documenting departures from the published procedure, which is the only route left once appeals are declared final
  • Building Section 504 and ADA claims, which survive the college being private and do not depend on its internal appeal
  • Filing an OCR complaint, a federal route the catalog cannot foreclose
  • Handling nursing school dismissal and clinical removal

Which court covers which HCI campus

Both campuses are in the Southern District of Florida, but in different divisions. West Palm Beach is in Palm Beach County, which 28 U.S.C. section 89(c) places in the West Palm Beach Division. Fort Lauderdale is in Broward County, the Fort Lauderdale Division. That is the court where I am admitted and where I practise. See the guide to federal districts by campus and the Florida nursing programs page.

The other Florida nursing and health-sciences schools

Florida’s standalone nursing and health-sciences colleges differ sharply in what their own paperwork permits. Some bar a lawyer from the room entirely, some compel arbitration in another state, and some publish no appeal deadline for the student at all while binding themselves to one. Those provisions, not the school’s reputation, decide how a dismissal case runs.

Before anything else, check where your programme sits against the statutory floor: the 82 Florida nursing programmes below the Fla. Stat. section 464.019 benchmark in 2025, including the written-disclosure duty a programme on probation owes its students. The Florida nursing programs page covers how these cases run, and nursing programmes inside the public colleges and universities are on those institutions’ own pages in the Florida schools index — where students get the Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) rights that private-school students do not.

Common questions about HCI College cases

Can I bring a lawyer to an HCI committee proceeding?

No. The catalog states that students are not permitted to bring or be represented by legal counsel during committee proceedings. It is a flat ban, which means the written submission and the preparation done beforehand carry the case.

How long do I have to appeal?

The catalog states no deadline for the student, only a 10 business day window for the college to decide, which it says may be exceeded in complex situations. An unwritten student deadline is a risk rather than a benefit, so file promptly and ask the college in writing which deadline it is applying and where it is published.

Can I escalate if my appeal is denied?

Not internally. The catalog says all appeal decisions are final and unappealable, with single-level review. That closes the internal route and makes whether HCI followed its own published procedure the question that matters.

I failed the same course twice. Is dismissal automatic?

The catalog provides that failing the same course twice results in dismissal, and no course may be repeated more than once. That makes the first failure the decisive event. If a withdrawal was recorded as a failing grade, whether it should have been is worth contesting, because it may be consuming a strike.

Is a conduct case handled the same way as an academic one?

No, and the difference is stark. The academic track has a defined if one-sided appeal. The conduct track describes investigation, a response and sanctions up to dismissal with no appeal at all. Which track your matter is placed in may decide whether any review exists, so establish it in writing early.

If HCI bars lawyers and makes appeals final, is there anything left?

Yes. Section 504 and ADA claims survive the college being private and do not depend on its internal process, an OCR complaint is a federal route the catalog cannot foreclose, and in Florida Sharick means a documented departure from the school’s own procedures can carry damages.