Elmhurst University: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

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

Elmhurst University is a private university in Elmhurst, DuPage County, affiliated with the United Church of Christ — about 3,170 undergraduates and 784 graduate students by its own count — accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, with CCNE-accredited nursing programs. Its conduct rules contain a lopsided burden worth knowing before you appeal. You can be found responsible on a preponderance of the evidence, but on appeal “The responsibility lies with the student to provide clear and convincing information demonstrating that the original process or decision was flawed” — and the appeal is due within three (3) business days of the outcome letter.

Elmhurst 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. Federal law does not care that the school is private: Title IX, Title VI and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act apply because it takes federal funds, and the ADA applies to it as a place of public accommodation.

A federal claim arising at Elmhurst 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 an Elmhurst 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.

Conduct cases: a one-on-one hearing and a three-business-day appeal

Under the Student Conduct Process in the 2026–2027 Student Handbook, an administrative hearing is “a one-on-one meeting between the respondent and a conduct administrator,” usually a Student Affairs staff member. You must schedule it within five (5) business days of the notice letter; ignore it and a second notice gives five more business days, after which the administrator may decide without you. “Failure to schedule or attend an administrative hearing after two notices” also forfeits “the opportunity to appeal.”

“Any person may serve as an advisor,” but advisors “will only be allowed to confer with their advisees” and may not act “as a spokesperson or advocate.” You may review the documentation behind the charges. The standard is preponderance, the outcome letter follows within three business days, and the handbook says the hearing “is designed to ensure fundamental fairness and to protect the student from arbitrary or capricious disciplinary action” — language worth quoting back.

The appeal goes to the Vice President for Student Affairs on three grounds: new information a diligent student could not have found earlier, a substantive procedural or interpretive error that denied a fair hearing, or a finding “clearly unreasonable and unsupported” and/or sanctions “too severe for the finding.” The decision “is final within the University.” The Vice President may also impose an interim suspension, and an involuntary leave is appealed to the President within five business days. See conduct code defense.

Academic integrity: two tracks and two different clocks

The Code of Academic Integrity counts as plagiarism “using generative AI not consistent with course policies.” The faculty member meets with you, decides, and imposes a course sanction from a warning up to an F for the course. To appeal, write to the Office of Academic Affairs within ten business days on one of four grounds — including that “The student believes no dishonest act occurred.” A panel of the two vice presidents, two faculty and two students decides finally; your advisor “may not present evidence, speak for the student.”

If the case is escalated into the Academic Misconduct Process, the Director of Community Standards and the Associate Dean for Academic Success decide whether to add University probation, suspension or expulsion, with the same five-business-day scheduling rule and two-notice forfeiture. That appeal goes to the Vice President for Academic Affairs “within three (3) days” — calendar or business is not stated — and is final. Neither track publishes a standard of proof. See AI academic integrity accusations.

Title IX: Process A or Process B

Sexual harassment and discrimination complaints run under the Non-Discrimination and Non-Harassment Policy (updated October 2025), and the Title IX Coordinator decides the track. Process A, for conduct within Title IX, ends in a live hearing — “All hearings will be online and remote” — before a three-member panel, with the final report shared at least ten business days ahead and cross-examination by the parties’ advisors. Process B lets the investigators decide. Both use preponderance. Your advisor may be an attorney, must be named two business days before any meeting, and in meetings serves “for emotional support and private consultation.” 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.

The appeal is due to the Title IX Coordinator within five (5) business days of the Notice of Outcome, generally decided by the Vice President for Student Affairs on three grounds, and review is “deferential to the original decision.” Hearing sanctions are on hold during the appeal. See Title IX hearings and cross-examination.

Academic standing, and a nursing rule that treats a withdrawal like a failure

Under the 2026–2027 catalog, an undergraduate GPA between 1.00 and 2.00 means probation the first time; another term below 2.00 on probation, or any GPA below 1.00, can bring dismissal. Dismissed students “have the right to appeal if they conclude they have significant information that would warrant a reconsideration,” but no deadline is published. Graduate students face a hard line: “A second C or C+ grade, a C- grade, a D grade or an F grade will result in dismissal from the graduate program and the University.”

The 2026–2027 Baccalaureate Nursing Handbook requires a 2.8 GPA and a C (78%) in every nursing course, then: “If a student receives a grade of D or F or withdraws (W) from a clinical or non-clinical nursing course, the student is dismissed from the nursing program.” You may seek reinstatement once, within one calendar year; “No one other than the student may attend the APR committee meeting,” and the decision “is final and may not be appealed.” A safety-related dismissal comes “without the opportunity of appeal.” See nursing school dismissal.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading Elmhurst 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. Three business days is not enough time to build a clear-and-convincing appeal from scratch, so the documentation should be requested and the appeal outlined before the outcome letter arrives. And for a nursing student, the decision whether to withdraw from a course is itself a dismissal decision under the handbook — it should be made with that rule in view, not discovered afterwards.

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 Elmhurst 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.

Under Elmhurst University’s Non-Discrimination and Non-Harassment Policy, your advisor of choice, a lawyer included, may consult with you privately in meetings and conducts the cross-examination at a Process A hearing; under the general conduct process, any advisor may only confer with you.

What to do first

1. Schedule the hearing within five business days. Two missed notices forfeit your appeal in both the conduct and the Academic Misconduct processes.
2. Write down your appeal clock: three business days for a conduct outcome; ten business days for a faculty integrity decision; “three (3) days” (unit unstated, so count calendar days) for an Academic Misconduct outcome; five business days for Title IX or an involuntary leave.
3. Ask in writing to review the documentation behind the charge — the handbook gives you that right.
4. Do not withdraw from a nursing course before reading the handbook’s dismissal rule.
5. Save the 2026–2027 Student Handbook, catalog and program handbook as dated PDFs, and say now if a disability or accommodation is involved. 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 Elmhurst University

Elmhurst University students and families took on $20.3 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — including $3.9 million borrowed by 202 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, Elmhurst University’s most recent published composite score is 3.0 (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:

• Erikson Institute
• Fox College
• Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
• Generations College
• Governors State University
• Hebrew Theological College

Common questions about Elmhurst University student cases

How long do I have to appeal at Elmhurst University?

Three business days from the outcome letter for a conduct decision, to the Vice President for Student Affairs. Ten business days for a faculty member’s academic integrity decision, to the Office of Academic Affairs. “Three (3) days,” unit unstated, for an Academic Misconduct outcome, to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Five business days for a Title IX decision. No deadline is published for an academic dismissal appeal.

What must I show in a conduct appeal at Elmhurst University?

More than you might expect. The finding against you only needs a preponderance of the evidence, but the appeal puts the responsibility on you “to provide clear and convincing information demonstrating that the original process or decision was flawed,” and it must fit one of three grounds: new information, a substantive procedural or interpretive error, or a clearly unreasonable finding or too-severe sanction.

Can Elmhurst University dismiss me from nursing for withdrawing from a course?

Under the 2026–2027 Baccalaureate Nursing Handbook, yes: a D, an F or a W in any clinical or non-clinical nursing course means dismissal from the nursing program. You may apply once for reinstatement within one calendar year; the committee meets with you alone, answers within 72 hours, and its decision may not be appealed. A second D, F or W ends the program for good.

Can I bring a lawyer to my Elmhurst University hearing?

In a conduct hearing “Any person may serve as an advisor,” so a lawyer can sit with you, but advisors may only confer with you and may not speak as an advocate. In an academic integrity appeal the advisor “may not present evidence, speak for the student.” In a Title IX Process A hearing your advisor, who may be an attorney, conducts the cross-examination.