Benedictine University: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

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

Benedictine University is a private Catholic university founded in 1887 by the Benedictine monks of St. Procopius Abbey, with its main campus in Lisle, DuPage County, a second campus in Mesa, Arizona, and accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. Its academic honesty rules hold the fact every accused student should know before appealing: the Academic Appeals Board that hears the last appeal “has the authority to confirm the original sanction, reduce the sanction, or increase the sanction.” At Benedictine University an appeal can make things worse — and in the separate conduct process, “legal counsel” may not appear at the hearing at all, “except for a Title IX hearing and if criminal proceedings are occurring simultaneously.”

Benedictine University is a private institution. There is no state action, so there is no constitutional due process claim, and arguing one wastes an appeal. The theory is contract: Illinois holds that a college and its students have a contractual relationship whose terms come from the catalog and the handbook — Raethz v. Aurora University, 346 Ill. App. 3d 728 (2004), restated by the Fourth District in Urso v. Bradley University, 2023 IL App (4th) 230165 — while adding that the relationship “is unique and cannot be strictly categorized or characterized in purely contractual terms.”

The limit is the standard of review, and it decides most of these cases before anyone reaches the facts. A student has a remedy for an adverse academic decision only if it was made arbitrarily, capriciously, or in bad faith. Frederick v. Northwestern University Dental School, 247 Ill. App. 3d 464 (1993), puts it bluntly — courts have been loath to review, much less overturn, academic dismissals — and Bosch v. NorthShore University Health System, 2019 IL App (1st) 190070, holds that a school which departs somewhat from its handbook still wins unless the departure was material. The federal courts in Chicago apply the same test: in Doe v. Columbia College Chicago, 933 F.3d 849 (7th Cir. 2019), the Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a student’s contract claim where the college had investigated and reasoned its way to a decision, and in Gash v. Rosalind Franklin University, 117 F.4th 957 (7th Cir. 2024), it held that calling a process arbitrary or predetermined, without specific facts, is not enough. What survives is specific: in Liu v. Northwestern University, 78 F. Supp. 3d 839 (N.D. Ill. 2015), a former law student’s claim went forward where the school imposed what amounted to an integrity charge while denying her the handbook procedure for contesting one. Which federal statutes reach Benedictine University depends on facts worth confirming early — whether it receives federal financial assistance, and, for a religiously controlled institution, whether it claims the religious exemptions some of those statutes allow.

The question is live here: Benedictine University’s nondiscrimination policy states that “The laws applicable to the University include constitutional and statutory protections of the University’s rights as a religiously sponsored institution.”

A federal claim arising at Benedictine University is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — DuPage County sits in its Eastern Division under 28 U.S.C. § 93(a), and the statute fixes the places of holding court for that division at Chicago and Wheaton. I am a member of the general bar of that court, admitted on my Florida license under its Local Rule 83.10, which opens the general bar to an attorney in good standing before the highest court of any state. That means a Title IX, Section 504 or ADA complaint for a Benedictine University student is one I file and litigate under my own name, with no pro hac vice motion. The Northern District abrogated its local-counsel designation rule in July 2023, so a member of its bar with no office in the district no longer has to designate local counsel. One limit, stated plainly: the court keeps a separate trial bar, and under Local Rule 83.12 a general-bar member who is not on it — that is me — appears alone in everything except testimonial proceedings, meaning evidentiary hearings and trial, where a trial-bar member must sit as advisor unless the judge grants the rule’s narrow waiver.

Academic honesty: an appeal that can raise the penalty

The Academic Honesty Policy (a web page, with an appeals flowchart dated June 27, 2024) runs on business-day clocks. The instructor emails you the violation and sanction; you have seven business days to give the instructor a written explanation, and in the same window you may ask the chair, program director or dean to mediate. They can comment but not overrule — “the decision to uphold or deny the appeal lies solely with the instructor.”

A sanction that stands goes to the Provost, who may add University sanctions: loss of honors, institutional aid or athletic eligibility, suspension or expulsion. “Sanctions imposed by the Provost are final unless the student requests a hearing within seven business days of notification.” The Academic Appeals Board — three faculty and two students voting — hears you first, then the instructor and witnesses, and “Participants called before the committee will testify one at a time and alone.” It may confirm, reduce or increase the sanction; its decision is final.

Two traps: you cannot drop a course in which a violation produced a failing grade unless the Board overturns the sanction, and the policy publishes no standard of proof and no advisor rule. See academic misconduct and honor code cases.

Conduct cases: no lawyers in the room, and a five-day appeal with no unit

Non-academic misconduct runs under § 1.21 of the 2026–27 Student Handbook. The Student Affairs Office chooses voluntary mediation, an administrative hearing or a panel hearing of students, faculty and administrators; “Students can expect to receive further details within 10 days if they require them to attend a hearing,” with no unit given. The hearing proceeds without you if you were notified and stay away. Lawyers and parents are kept out under the rule quoted above; community members may help you but “do not speak at the hearing,” and the handbook publishes no standard of proof.

The appeal clause (§ 1.21.4) covers “a decision made by a hearing panel,” “within five days of notification of a decision” — again no unit — by written grounds to the Student Affairs Office, which decides finally. “The burden of demonstrating an inequity in the hearing or remedy shall lie with the student.” The clause is silent on administrative-hearing decisions, and § 1.22 allows interim suspension and involuntary withdrawal without publishing any appeal. See conduct code defense.

Title IX: a Zoom hearing, questions filed a day ahead, and a three-day appeal

Sexual harassment, discrimination, sexual misconduct and retaliation run under a single Title IX Policy dated September 3, 2026, which defines every “day” as a calendar day. You get up to 10 days to respond to the evidence, the report arrives at least 10 days before the hearing, and the live hearing is held on Zoom. Twenty-four hours ahead, each side must say whether it is bringing an advisor and submit its cross-examination questions for relevance screening; the advisor, who may be an attorney, then asks them “directly, orally and in real time.” The standard is preponderance.

The appeal is due to the Title IX Coordinator within 3 days after the hearing recording is made available, on three grounds — procedural irregularity, new evidence, or conflict of interest or bias — with no ground for a disproportionate sanction. An emergency removal requires notice of intent to appeal within 48 hours and the appeal within 5 days. For sexual misconduct, the federal rule is the 2020 Title IX regulation: the 2024 rule was vacated nationwide on January 9, 2025, in Tennessee v. Cardona, and on September 29, 2026 the Department of Education formally repealed it and restored the pre-2024 text (91 Fed. Reg. 61,308). The 2020 regulation requires postsecondary institutions to hold a live hearing at which each party’s advisor conducts cross-examination. See Title IX hearings and cross-examination.

Academic standing and grade appeals

Undergraduates need a 2.000 cumulative GPA. Below it you are on probation — and if the term GPA was under 1.000 you must take BENB 0096 and BENB 0099. Missing 2.000 at the end of probation means dismissal “for poor scholarship.” The Committee on Academic Standing may grant a one-semester reinstatement, weighing your GPAs, a Dean of Students recommendation and your plan, but the catalog publishes no deadline for asking. Otherwise the dismissal lasts at least two academic semesters. Graduate students are dismissed after two consecutive semesters below 3.000, with a written appeal to the same committee. Grade appeals are limited to clerical error or standards not articulated or not followed; the burden is yours, the deadline is the end of the following semester, and the Provost decides last. See academic dismissal.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading Benedictine University’s policy against what the university actually did and finding the gap; writing the response or the appeal so it argues the grounds the policy recognizes rather than the ones that feel most unfair; preserving the federal issues — Title IX, Section 504 and the ADA, FERPA — so they are in the record if the case ever leaves campus; and identifying comparators, because a sanction far outside what similar cases drew is one of the few arguments that reliably moves a decision-maker.

Two moves are specific here. The seven-business-day letter to the instructor is the first record in an academic honesty case, so write it as if the Board will read it — and request a Board hearing knowing it can raise the sanction and that you will testify alone. In a conduct case, where counsel cannot appear, preparation and the written appeal carry everything; ask Student Affairs in writing how its “days” are counted.

What a lawyer cannot do is turn a campus process into a trial. The rules of evidence do not apply, there is no discovery, and the university decides its own case. That is why the written record built on campus is the whole ballgame: by the time a court looks at it, the record is closed.

The one Illinois statute that gives you procedure

Illinois has no general statute setting notice periods, hearing formats, standards of proof or appeal rights for college students. The Illinois School Code, 105 ILCS 5, has a detailed suspension and expulsion scheme, and it applies to elementary and secondary schools, not here. The exception is the Preventing Sexual Violence in Higher Education Act, 110 ILCS 155, and it is a real one. It reaches every higher education institution in the state — public universities, community colleges, and private not-for-profit and for-profit institutions alike — and it requires timely written notice of the allegations to all parties, an investigation that is adequate, reliable and impartial, written notice of the outcome, and appeal rights. It requires the school to make confidential advisors available, trained to a statutory standard and kept separate from the people deciding the case. Both parties are entitled to an advisor of their choice, and that advisor may be an attorney — although the institution may limit how far an attorney-advisor participates in a hearing, which is why Benedictine University’s own rule on that, set out above, still governs what your lawyer may do in the room. The standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence, applied the same way to both sides.

At Benedictine University the Title IX Policy lets your advisor of choice, a lawyer included, conduct the cross-examination at the Zoom hearing, while the general conduct process keeps legal counsel out of every other hearing.

What to do first

1. Count the days. Seven business days to answer the instructor; seven business days to request a Board hearing after the Provost’s notice; five days (unit unstated, so count calendar days) for a conduct appeal; three calendar days for a Title IX appeal once the recording is available.
2. Do not drop the course after an academic honesty sanction without advice.
3. Save the 2026–27 Student Handbook, the Academic Honesty Policy page, its flowchart and the September 3, 2026 Title IX Policy as dated PDFs.
4. Ask in writing for the evidence, the hearing format and the names of the decision-makers.
5. Raise any disability or accommodation issue now, so the Section 504 and ADA question is in the record. Other schools are on the Illinois student defense hub.

One honest caveat about geography. Illinois has three federal districts. I am admitted to two of them, the Northern and the Southern. A federal claim arising at a school in Springfield, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana or the Quad Cities falls in the Central District; I am not a member of that bar, and those matters I handle with local counsel in that district or by pro hac vice admission. Appeals from the Northern District go to the Seventh Circuit, which keeps its own bar; my appellate admission is in the Eleventh. I say so before a retainer rather than after.

Where I am licensed. I am licensed to practice law in Florida. I am admitted to the bars of the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida, the District of Colorado, the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the District of Nebraska, the District of New Mexico, and the Western District of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Federal court admission is not a license to practice the law of the state in which the court sits. I am not licensed in Illinois and do not advise on Illinois state law or appear in Illinois state court.

The federal money on the line at Benedictine University

Benedictine University students and families took on $10.5 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — including $1.9 million borrowed by 119 parents through Parent PLUS.

Every dollar of it rides on academic standing. A dismissal, a failed Satisfactory Academic Progress evaluation, or a mid-term withdrawal sets off federal rules that decide whether aid continues, whether money already disbursed has to go back, and — under the borrowing caps in effect since July 1, 2026 — whether a student who leaves can still finance a return. The academic fight and the financial aid fight are the same fight, and the windows are short. How those rules work: SAP appeals and academic dismissal.

On the Department’s financial responsibility test, Benedictine University’s most recent published composite score is 2.4 (fiscal year 2022–23) — a passing score on the –1.0-to-3.0 scale, where 1.5 and above passes. How to read that number: the federal warning signs guide.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Data Center, Direct Loan volume by school, award year 2025–26 (cumulative through June 30, 2026). Institution-wide federal Direct Loan totals.

Other schools in the Northern District of Illinois

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other schools in the Northern District of Illinois:

• Bexley Hall Seabury Western Theological Seminary Federation
• CAAN Academy of Nursing
• Catholic Theological Union at Chicago
• Chamberlain University (Illinois campuses)
• The Chicago School (Chicago campus)
• Chicago State University

Common questions about Benedictine University student cases

How long do I have to appeal at Benedictine University?

For academic honesty, seven business days to give the instructor your written explanation, then seven business days from the Provost’s notice to request a hearing before the Academic Appeals Board. For a conduct decision by a hearing panel, “five days,” with no unit stated. For Title IX, 3 calendar days after the hearing recording is made available. No deadline is published for a poor-scholarship dismissal appeal.

Can the Academic Appeals Board increase my penalty at Benedictine University?

Yes. The Academic Honesty Policy says the Board “has the authority to confirm the original sanction, reduce the sanction, or increase the sanction,” and its decision is final. That does not mean an appeal is a mistake; it means the request for a hearing should be a deliberate decision, made with the record and the possible outcomes in view.

Can I bring a lawyer to my Benedictine University hearing?

Not to an ordinary conduct hearing. The handbook says no “legal counsel, or person outside of the University community is allowed to appear at the hearing, except for a Title IX hearing and if criminal proceedings are occurring simultaneously.” In a Title IX case your advisor may be an attorney and conducts the cross-examination at the Zoom hearing. A lawyer can still help you prepare and write.

What standard of proof does Benedictine University use?

Only the Title IX Policy names one: preponderance of the evidence. The Student Handbook’s conduct process and the Academic Honesty Policy publish none, and the conduct appeal puts “The burden of demonstrating an inequity” on the student. Asking in writing what standard will be applied, before the hearing, is a reasonable request.