Colorado Chinese Medicine University Student Defense Lawyer

Students call me about Colorado Chinese Medicine University at three moments: when a clinic supervisor writes an unsatisfactory evaluation, when the Dean sends a warning letter about academic performance or conduct, and, usually too late, after a dismissal letter that ends a licensure track rather than a semester. Each of these turns on a written record, and most of that record is made by people who are not lawyers.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Colorado Chinese Medicine University?

Colorado Chinese Medicine University, in Denver, is a private for-profit institution. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim here. The theory is contract: the catalog, the enrollment agreement and the student and clinic handbooks are the promise, and the question is whether the school did what its own published procedure said it would do. Federal statutes sit on top of that — Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act — along with the requirements of its accreditor.

Colorado law tells you which of those theories is worth anything. In University of Denver v. Doe, 2024 CO 27, the Colorado Supreme Court held that a private university’s promise of a thorough, impartial and fair process, read together with the specific requirements in its own procedures, can be definite enough to be an enforceable contract, and it revived the student’s contract and good-faith-and-fair-dealing claims. In the same decision it rejected the tort theory, holding that a university “does not owe its students an extra-contractual duty to exercise reasonable care in adopting and implementing fair procedures.” In Colorado the viable claim against a private institution is contract, not negligence. See breach of contract.

There is no general Colorado campus due process statute: no right to counsel, no hearing right, no evidentiary standard, no appeal right. The one place the legislature prescribes procedure is sexual misconduct, C.R.S. § 23-5-146, which reaches state institutions and participating private institutions, requires a fair, impartial and prompt process, fixes preponderance of the evidence when a student is the respondent, and guarantees an advisor while barring that advisor from speaking for the student. Whether a given private school participates is worth confirming rather than assuming.

Where do Colorado Chinese Medicine University cases come from?

The school enrolls roughly 89 students and was formerly the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It offers five graduate programs: master’s degrees in acupuncture and in acupuncture with a Chinese herbal medicine specialization, professional doctorates in each, and a doctorate in acupuncture and Oriental medicine. It runs three fifteen-week trimesters a year, and students move through a sequence that ends in supervised patient care in the student clinic.

That structure is the whole story. This is a licensure-track professional school, so a professionalism finding, a removal from clinic, or a dismissal does not cost you a semester — it reaches your credential. The catalog is explicit that completion of a program does not guarantee licensure in any state, that most states require the national certification examinations and the clean needle technique examination, and that Colorado is among the states using those national examinations. Graduation itself requires a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 and a passing score of 70 percent or above on every section of the school’s written proficiency examinations. A finding about your judgment with a patient is a finding a licensing board can ask about years later, which is why the page on professionalism findings matters more here than the conduct-hearing pages do.

The second source is quieter and, at a school this size, more common. Separation usually arrives through progress, participation and clinical-clearance rules rather than through a hearing. The catalog expects full participation, allows no more than three missed sessions per course per trimester before failure becomes possible, treats arriving more than fifteen minutes late as a missed participation, and provides that failing to participate for thirty calendar days may result in suspension or termination. The financial consequences land immediately, and credits earned in a specialized program of this kind often do not transfer anywhere. See SAP appeals and academic dismissal and suspension.

Which process are you in, and why does that matter?

Four tracks run on different clocks here, and the label on your letter picks which one you are in. A student academic conduct matter — dishonesty, unprofessional behavior in class or clinic, unethical behavior in clinic, practicing acupuncture outside supervised study — produces a warning letter from the Dean, then probation, then possible dismissal. A grade point average problem, or an unsatisfactory clinic supervisor evaluation, produces academic probation with a two-trimester clock. A participation problem produces suspension or termination with its own letter-and-meeting appeal to the Dean. And a complaint you want to bring runs through the grievance procedure: a Notice of Student Complaint, then a hearing before the Grievance Committee.

Answering in the wrong track spends the only response you get. Match your letter first: academic misconduct or conduct code charges.

What should you do first?

Get the documents that actually govern you. The catalog repeatedly points to the Student Handbook, the Clinic Manual, the Technical Standards and the course syllabi for the detail, and those are not published at a public address. Email the Academic Dean of Students and ask, in writing, for the current versions of each, for your response and appeal deadlines, and for a copy of anything the decision-maker will see. Keep the reply. An inaccessible document is not adequate published notice, and the exchange itself becomes part of the record.

Then collect your own file: every clinic evaluation and supervisor comment, your participation record, the syllabus and any written instruction about what was permitted on an assignment, and every email about scheduling, absences and make-up work. If a supervisor’s evaluation is the problem, write your account of the shift while you still remember it. Do not sit for a meeting with the Dean before you know what is being alleged and under which policy.

What does Colorado Chinese Medicine University’s own policy actually say?

Conduct and academic policy sit in one catalog, so a single document answers both. Some fields are stated plainly; others are referred out to a handbook the school does not publish, and this list says which is which.

• Conduct office: the Dean, through the Student Academic Conduct provisions of the CCMU catalog, with the Academic Dean of Students handling academic matters and the Grievance Committee hearing student complaints.
• Governing policy: the school’s own catalog and student handbook. No system-wide code applies. CCMU is not a Colorado Community College System member, so the CCCS system procedures that govern the thirteen state two-year colleges are the wrong document here.
• Academic integrity: not a separate honor code. Dishonesty — cheating, plagiarism, forgery or misuse of school documents — is listed alongside unsatisfactory academic performance, unprofessional or disorderly conduct in class or clinic, unethical behavior in clinic and practicing acupuncture outside supervised study as grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal.
• Appeal window: not published. The academic appeals procedures cover grades, probation, suspension and dismissal after a finding of academic dishonesty, begin with informal resolution and the Academic Dean of Students, and then refer to the Student Handbook. For a participation-based suspension or termination the catalog requires a letter to the Dean on or before a specified appeal date and a personal meeting. No campus-specific day-count located; ask for the date in writing.
• Standard of proof: the catalog does not publish one. Ask the Dean in writing which standard the decision-maker will apply. In a sexual misconduct case C.R.S. § 23-5-146(3)(d)(II) fixes preponderance of the evidence for institutions the statute reaches.
• Advisor: the catalog does not say whether you may bring an advisor to a meeting with the Dean or to a Grievance Committee hearing, whether the advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak. No campus-specific advisor rule located; confirm it in writing before the meeting. In sexual misconduct cases C.R.S. § 23-5-146(3)(d)(IV) allows an advisor but bars that advisor from speaking on the student’s behalf.
• Academic standing: in the same catalog. A trimester average below a 3.0 grade point average, or unsatisfactory evaluations from a clinic supervisor, means academic probation; the student may be asked to drop practical or clinical classes for the rest of the trimester; and a student who does not clear probation within two trimesters may be dismissed or suspended for a trimester. Faculty evaluate every student at the end of each trimester to determine eligibility to enter the next one, and an intern performing poorly in clinic can be required to repeat that clinic. Satisfactory academic progress for financial aid purposes is set out in the Student Handbook rather than the catalog.

Two practical notes. The catalog names no Title IX coordinator and no disability services office, so ask who holds those roles rather than assuming. And it states that no transcripts or documents will be released while a financial balance is outstanding; Colorado addresses the withholding of transcripts and diplomas in C.R.S. § 23-5-113.5, and whether that provision reaches a particular private institution is a question to raise before you plan around a hold. The practical consequences are covered under transcript holds.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Colorado Chinese Medicine University — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, where I am admitted to the bar, so no pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney is needed. Because the school is private there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim, and the contract claim is a state-law claim governed by University of Denver v. Doe. Few of these matters reach court. What decides them is the campus record:

• Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
• Preparing your account, your documents and your questions
• Testing whether the school followed its own published procedure
• Scrutinising software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
• Helping with the written response and the appeal, where policy allows
• Serving as your advisor where the process permits one
• Negotiating sanction terms, notations and disclosure language

What a lawyer can do in the room turns on a handbook CCMU does not publish, which is itself the reason to ask before the meeting rather than after. Where a decision is already final, the questions shift to the record and the grounds, covered under appeals and court review.

Other Colorado health-professional programs

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Colorado health-professional programs:

• Pima Medical Institute Aurora
• Pima Medical Institute Colorado Springs
• Pima Medical Institute Denver
• University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
• University of Colorado School of Medicine — Dismissal & Appeals
• Apex College of Veterinary Technology

Common questions about Colorado Chinese Medicine University student cases

Can a bad clinic evaluation get me dismissed from CCMU?

It can start the sequence. The catalog places a student on academic probation for a trimester average below a 3.0 grade point average or for unsatisfactory evaluations from a clinic supervisor, and a student who does not clear probation within two trimesters may be dismissed or suspended for a trimester. Separately, all students are evaluated by faculty at the end of each trimester to determine eligibility to enter the next one, and an intern with poor performance of any kind in clinic can be required to repeat that clinic. Deal with the evaluation when it is written, not when the dismissal letter arrives.

How long do I have to appeal a CCMU dismissal?

The catalog does not say. It states that the academic appeals procedures cover grades, probation, suspension and dismissal following a finding of academic dishonesty, that informal resolution comes first, and that the Academic Dean of Students should be consulted, then refers you to the Student Handbook for the rest. For a participation-based suspension or termination it says only that the Dean must receive your letter on or before a specified appeal date. No campus-specific day-count located, so email the Dean the day your letter arrives, ask for the deadline in writing, and keep the answer.

Will a CCMU dismissal affect my acupuncture license?

Very likely, which is why the credential rather than the trimester is the real stake. CCMU exists to qualify you to sit for the national certification examinations that Colorado and most other states use, and the catalog says completion of a program does not guarantee licensure anywhere. A dismissal for unprofessional or unethical conduct in clinic is the kind of finding a licensing board asks about on a character and fitness question years later. The wording of the finding, not only the outcome, is worth negotiating while the file is still open.

This is general information about the matters I handle and the law that applies to them. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the law in this area can change. For advice on your matter, start with the Full Read + Game Plan — your entire file read, straight answers, and exactly what to do next, in what order. Other campuses are covered on the Colorado student defense page.

This page is informational and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the institution named on it.

Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is licensed to practice law in Florida and is admitted to the bars of the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, and the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Federal court admission is not a license to practice the law of the state in which the court sits; he is not licensed in Colorado and does not advise on Colorado state law.