College of DuPage: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at College of DuPage?

College of DuPage is a public community college in Glen Ellyn, DuPage County — Community College District No. 502, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and, with more than 26,000 students, the largest community college in Illinois by its own count. The fact to know first: the Judicial Review Board that hears conduct appeals lets you bring an advisor, but the code says that advisor “does not include legal counsel or an attorney at law” — while COD’s sexual-misconduct procedure lets your advisor be a lawyer who does the questioning. Grade appeals carry their own twist: the committee acts only on “clear and convincing evidence.”

College of DuPage is a public community college, so two bodies of law apply on top of its own policies. The first is constitutional due process: the college is a state actor, and Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), requires notice of the charge and a meaningful chance to respond. The second is the deference courts give genuine academic judgment — Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), and Regents of the University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985). In the Seventh Circuit a due process claim also needs a protected interest: there is no free-standing property interest in a public education, and a student has to point to a specific promise the college made — Charleston v. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 741 F.3d 769 (7th Cir. 2013).

Illinois law treats a community college differently from a state university, and the difference matters. A community college district is a local public entity, not the State: it falls under the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/1-206, not the Court of Claims Act, so a breach-of-contract claim against it is brought in circuit court — see Luciano v. Waubonsee Community College, 245 Ill. App. 3d 1077 (1993). Review of the board’s disciplinary decision does not run through the Administrative Review Law, which the Public Community College Act does not adopt for these matters; the route is a common-law writ of certiorari (or mandamus) in the circuit court — Maas v. Board of Trustees of Community College District No. 529, 94 Ill. App. 3d 562 (1981). And in federal court the district is not an arm of the State and has no Eleventh Amendment immunity — Hostrop v. Board of Junior College District No. 515, 523 F.2d 569 (7th Cir. 1975) — so under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), it can be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 where its own policy or custom caused the constitutional violation.

A federal claim arising at College of DuPage 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, ADA or due process complaint for a College of DuPage 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.

The conduct code: a meeting with the Dean, then the Judicial Review Board

The Code of Student Conduct, Administrative Procedure 20-35, was last amended in February 2015.

• The hold. When a formal hearing is set, you “can neither withdraw from current courses nor register for future courses until the current matter is settled.”
• The first hearing is a meeting with the Dean of Students. Anyone else attends at the Dean’s discretion, and the code states no standard of proof.
• Appeal within ten (10) business days “of the date recorded on the Case Resolution Form” — typewritten, to the Vice President of Student Affairs, stating your grounds and saying whether you want to appear in person.
• The Board — two administrators, two faculty, one student — hears the College first, lets both sides question witnesses, ignores the rules of evidence, records the hearing and decides within ten (10) business days.
• Suspension or expulsion can go on to the Vice President within ten (10) business days; the Vice President decides within fifteen (15) and cannot increase the sanction. A suspension attaches a statement to your transcript, kept in your file for up to seven years.
• Summary suspension arrives by certified mail. Respond within three (3) business days of receipt or you waive the conference.

Cheating, grades and academic standing

Under the Code of Academic Conduct (Procedure 5.16) the instructor decides first and may settle the matter on a signed form — up to failure for the course — that is still logged in the college’s Judicial Database. Deny it, or face more than course failure, and the Dean holds a Formal Judicial Hearing. A finding stays off the transcript, but if a transfer or honors application within seven years requires disclosure, “such academic dishonesty will be disclosed.” The appeal is due “within two business weeks.” Accused over AI-generated work? Make the instructor show the irregularity.

A grade appeal starts with the instructor “within forty-five (45) calendar days of the last day of the academic term”; the next step is due within ten (10) days, and the policy does not say whether these are calendar or business days. A three-faculty committee meets where “Neither the student nor the instructor will be accompanied by an advocate or representative,” and it cannot award a letter grade. Academic standing runs from Warning through Probation I and II to Suspension I (one semester) and Suspension II (twelve months); the catalog sends suspension appeals to the Dean of Students with no published deadline.

Nursing and health science: one readmission, one calendar year

After a first grade below C in a nursing course, the ADN readmission packet allows “one readmission on a space available basis,” and it “must occur within one calendar year of the initial withdrawal.” The steps begin before you leave: meet the course’s lead faculty and a Program Chair before exiting the program, then submit a letter with a “formal success plan.” The Health Science clinical packet, revised September 28, 2026, adds that a positive drug screen “will lead to immediate dismissal from, or non-admittance to the particular program(s)” — marijuana included, even with a prescription. See nursing school dismissal.

Sexual misconduct: a live hearing, and your advisor asks the questions

Procedure 3.11 counts days as business days, gives each party “an advisor of their choice, who may, but need not be an attorney,” applies preponderance of the evidence, and takes appeals within ten days of receiving the determination. 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, as COD’s procedure provides. See Title IX hearings and cross-examination.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading the procedure against what COD actually did, writing the response or appeal on the grounds the procedure recognizes, preserving Title IX, Section 504, ADA and FERPA issues so they are in the record, and finding comparators.

At COD two moves matter most. Counsel cannot sit beside you at the Judicial Review Board, so the typewritten appeal has to carry the case — precise grounds, a request to appear, and afterward a request for the recording. In a grade appeal, the clear-and-convincing burden means the Grade Review Form needs documents, not grievances.

The limit: there is no discovery, the rules of evidence do not apply, and the written record built on campus is all a court will see.

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 College of DuPage’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 COD the contrast is stark: under Procedure 3.11 your advisor may be a lawyer who conducts the questioning; at the Judicial Review Board a lawyer cannot be your advisor at all.

What to do first

1. Diary the deadline with its unit — ten business days (conduct appeal), two business weeks (academic integrity), three business days (summary suspension), forty-five calendar days (grade review).
2. Save Procedure 20-35 or 5.16 as a dated PDF. The posted codes lag behind the Policy Manual.
3. Ask in writing for the incident report, the Case Resolution Form and the hearing recording.
4. Explain nothing informally until you know the process.
5. Nursing students: meet the lead faculty and a Program Chair before you exit, and keep the occurrence report.
6. Raise any disability now — it is a Section 504 and ADA question. The Illinois student defense hub explains how federal claims from these campuses work.

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 College of DuPage

College of DuPage students and families took on $8.3 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year.

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.

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 college writes its own conduct, academic-standing and appeal rules, and the deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other community colleges in the Northern District of Illinois:

• College of Lake County
• Elgin Community College
• Harold Washington College (City Colleges of Chicago)
• Harper College
• Harry S Truman College (City Colleges of Chicago)
• Highland Community College

Common questions about College of DuPage student cases

How long do I have to appeal a College of DuPage conduct decision?

Ten business days from the date recorded on the Case Resolution Form, not from the day you read it. The appeal must be typewritten, addressed to the Vice President of Student Affairs, state your grounds and say whether you want to appear. Suspension and expulsion decisions can then go to the Vice President within another ten business days.

Can I bring a lawyer to my College of DuPage hearing?

Not as your advisor before the Judicial Review Board: advisors are limited to family, peers and College employees, and the code says an advisor “does not include legal counsel or an attorney at law.” At the first meeting, others attend at the Dean’s discretion. In a sexual-misconduct case under Procedure 3.11, your advisor may be a lawyer who conducts the questioning.

What standard of proof does College of DuPage use?

Preponderance of the evidence for sexual misconduct. The general conduct code and the academic-integrity code publish no standard at all. In a grade appeal the burden runs the other way: the committee acts only if a majority finds your allegation “supported by any clear and convincing evidence.”

Can College of DuPage dismiss me from a health program over a drug test?

Yes. The Health Science clinical packet says a positive drug screen or misrepresentation about drug use “will lead to immediate dismissal from, or non-admittance to” the program, and a positive marijuana screen is not accepted even with a prescription. You may reapply for the next admission cycle, but readmission is discretionary.

How many chances do I get to return to COD nursing after failing a course?

It depends how you left. After a first grade below C, or withdrawing while failing, the readmission packet allows one readmission, space permitting, within one calendar year of leaving; withdrawing while passing allows two. Meet the lead faculty and a Program Chair before you go, then send the nursing office a letter with a formal success plan.