University of St. Francis: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at University of St. Francis?

The University of St. Francis is a private Roman Catholic university in the Franciscan tradition, in Joliet, in Will County. It reports 2,912 students, most of them in graduate and doctoral programs, is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, and its nursing programs carry CCNE accreditation. Its academic deadlines are short and enforced by the form itself: once an instructor files an integrity violation, you have two work days to respond in the portal, and a dismissal appeal is due within five working days, complete and backed by a faculty member’s input form, or “the appeal will not be considered.”

University of St. Francis 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 University of St. Francis is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — Will 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 University of St. Francis 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 integrity: two work days to answer

Under the catalog’s University Policies and Procedures, an instructor who suspects a violation must meet with you “within five work days of the discovery.” If you are not cleared, the instructor files a violation form within two work days and you must respond in the portal within two work days. If you contest the charge or the course sanction, the dean meets both sides within five work days and makes “the final ruling.” Sanctions run from an instructor’s course penalty, up to failing the course, to a dean’s university sanction, up to dismissal noted on the transcript. Once a violation is determined, “the student surrenders the right to withdraw from the course.” The policy states no standard of proof — a gap that matters in any academic misconduct case.

Probation and dismissal: five working days, complete or not at all

Undergraduate dismissal thresholds rise with hours attempted, starting at a GPA below 1.50 for students with fewer than 19 hours, and more than two consecutive semesters on probation means dismissal. Notice comes by email “within five working days after the Monday following exam week,” and the clock for a dismissal appeal starts then. The Student Complaint and Appeal Form is due “no later than five working (per University calendar) days after email notification,” answering four questions — including why you did not withdraw or take an incomplete — and a full-time faculty member must send a Faculty Input Form to the dean in the same five days. “If the form is not complete or is late, the appeal will not be considered.”

The dean must schedule a meeting within five working days. If the dean upholds the decision, you have three working days to email academicappeals@stfrancis.edu for a hearing before the Student Appeals Subcommittee — the chair of the Educational Standards Committee, two faculty and two students — on three grounds: significant new information, a procedural error, or “an arbitrary or capricious decision” inconsistent with the established facts. Any new information must be in that email, and the subcommittee’s decision is final.

Nursing: two D or F grades, and a competence clause

Nursing majors go on probation below a 2.75 term or cumulative GPA, and “if a student receives a grade of D or F from two nursing courses, the student will be dismissed from the nursing program.” Faculty may also recommend dismissal where performance makes continuing “inadvisable,” and any student who fails “to demonstrate professional/clinical competence” in required applied experiences may be dismissed from the program. Graduate students need a 3.0 and are dismissed after two semesters on probation. The university says its physician assistant program ran until April 30, 2025 and is no longer offered.

Conduct and sexual misconduct: one code you can read, one you cannot

The Student Code of Conduct and the student handbooks sit behind the MyUSF portal login; the catalog says only that they “may be accessed in the USF portal.” 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 university’s equity policy, “Based on 2020 Title IX Regulations” and revised March 2025, provides that live hearing, with advisors, who may be attorneys, conducting cross-examination, and says that where applicable under state law, advisors or attorneys may “fully represent their advisees.” A day is defined as “a business day,” so an appeal due “within five days of the delivery of the Notice of Outcome” means five business days. An emergency removal can be challenged at a show-cause meeting, but “there is no appeal process for emergency removal decisions.” Decisions use preponderance of the evidence, although the policy’s definitions still read “clear and convincing preponderance of evidence.”

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading the university’s policy against what was actually done; writing the response or appeal on the grounds the policy recognizes; preserving Title IX, Section 504, ADA and FERPA issues so they are in the record if the case leaves campus; and finding comparators, because a sanction far outside what similar cases drew is one of the few arguments that moves a decision-maker.

Two moves are specific to St. Francis. The appeal form is the case: the work is drafting complete answers and securing the faculty input form inside five working days, then writing the Step III email so it carries every ground and all new information, including the school’s own “arbitrary or capricious” ground. In an integrity case, the two-work-day response is your statement; contest the charge there rather than accepting a sanction in a meeting. The limit is real: there is no discovery, the rules of evidence do not apply, and the written record built now is the record a court would later review.

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 the University of St. Francis’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.

What to do first

1. Log in to MyUSF today and save the Student Code of Conduct and your program handbook as dated PDFs.
2. Count working days, not calendar days: two to answer an integrity form, five to appeal a dismissal, three to request the subcommittee hearing.
3. Ask a full-time faculty member in your program for the Faculty Input Form the day the dismissal email arrives.
4. Answer every question on the appeal form with documentation; promises to study harder are, in the catalog’s words, “not sufficient.”
5. Raise any disability or accommodation issue now, and read the Illinois student defense overview.

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 University of St. Francis

University of St. Francis students and families took on $9.5 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.

On the Department’s financial responsibility test, University of St. Francis’s most recent published composite score is 2.3 (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:

• VanderCook College of Music
• Wheaton College
• Worsham College of Mortuary Science
• Adler University
• American Islamic College
• Aurora University

Common questions about University of St. Francis student cases

How long do I have to appeal a dismissal at the University of St. Francis?

Five working days, on the university calendar, from the dean’s email. The appeal form must be complete, and a faculty member must send the Faculty Input Form within the same five days; a late or incomplete form “will not be considered.” If the dean upholds the dismissal, you have three working days to request a subcommittee hearing.

What happens if I’m accused of cheating at the University of St. Francis?

The instructor must meet you within five work days of discovering it. If you are not cleared, a violation form is filed and you have two work days to respond in the portal. If you contest it, the dean rules. Sanctions run from a failed assignment to dismissal, and you lose the right to withdraw from the course.

Can I bring a lawyer to a University of St. Francis appeal meeting?

For academic grievances, no: you may seek advice from anyone, “including an attorney,” but you may not have a representative or attorney attend the meeting. In a sexual misconduct case under the 2020-based policy, your advisor may be an attorney and conducts cross-examination at the live hearing.

Can the University of St. Francis dismiss me from nursing?

Yes. A D or F in two nursing courses means dismissal from the nursing program, and faculty may recommend dismissal where performance makes continuing “inadvisable” or clinical competence is not shown. Appeals use the same five-working-day procedure as any academic dismissal.

Where can I read the University of St. Francis student code of conduct?

Only inside the MyUSF portal: the university’s website and its catalog both send students there for the code and the handbooks. A parent or outside advisor therefore cannot read them unless you share them, so save a dated copy as soon as a problem starts.