Denver College of Nursing Student Defense Lawyer

Students call me about Denver College of Nursing at three moments: when a faculty member reports an academic integrity violation, when a clinical instructor raises a professionalism or safe-practice concern and the student is sent home from the unit, and when a course grade lands just under the passing threshold and progression stops. Each carries a short clock, and each turns on a written record built in days.

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

Denver College of Nursing is a private, for-profit institution. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim against it and no constitutional right to a hearing. The theory is contract: the student handbook and the College Catalog are the promise, and enforcing them is a breach of contract claim under state law. Alongside it sit the federal statutes reaching private schools that take federal money, Title IX, Title VI and Section 504 with the ADA, plus accreditor obligations.

Colorado has recently made that contract theory a real one. 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 investigation, read with the specific investigative requirements in its own procedures, was definite enough to be an enforceable contract, and reversed summary judgment on contract and on the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. In the same decision it closed the other door: a university “does not owe its students an extra-contractual duty to exercise reasonable care in adopting and implementing fair procedures.” The contract holding below, Doe v. University of Denver, 2022 COA 57, survives; its tort-duty holding does not. Against a private school in Colorado the theory is contract, not negligence, so the school’s written commitments are the case: find every specific promise and check it against what happened.

Colorado statutes add little for a private college. There is no general campus due-process statute, no right to counsel, no statutory hearing right or evidentiary standard for ordinary conduct or academic cases. The exception is sexual misconduct: C.R.S. § 23-5-146 requires a fair, impartial and prompt process, fixes preponderance when a student is the respondent under (3)(d)(II), and under (3)(d)(IV) guarantees an advisor while barring that advisor from speaking for the student. It reaches state institutions and participating private institutions; the handbook does not say whether this College is one, so ask first.

Where do Denver College of Nursing cases come from?

Denver College of Nursing enrolls roughly 811 students in two downtown Denver buildings, a main campus on 19th Street and an annex on Lawrence Street. It is a single-purpose school: pre-licensure ADN and BSN programs, an RN to BSN track and an MSN program. There is no general education campus to absorb a problem, so every finding here lands on a licensure track.

Three findings do the real damage. The first is professionalism: the handbook builds its conduct standards on the nursing code of ethics and reserves the right to dismiss a student whose conduct is regarded as in conflict with the best interests of the College. The second is clinical-site removal, where the handbook is blunt: if unprofessional or disrespectful conduct by a student causes the College to lose a clinical site, the student will be dismissed from the program. The third is program dismissal itself. All three are covered on the pages about nursing dismissal and professionalism findings.

The grading rules make separation easy to trigger. To pass a pre-licensure course a student must reach a composite examination and quiz score of 78.0 percent, then a composite course grade of 78.0 percent, then earn a Pass on clinical, simulation and skills laboratory performance, graded against rubrics identifying critical elements that must be judged satisfactory. Failure of any of those fails the entire course. And a dismissal does not stop at the campus door: the handbook reminds students that the Board of Nursing has the sole authority to deny a graduate the chance to sit the NCLEX-RN examination, that the Colorado Nurse Practice Act regulates the program, and that the Board runs its own background check and expects candour. A program record is a licensure problem first.

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

The letter tells you which track you are in, and the tracks have different decision-makers. Cheating, plagiarism, unpermitted collaboration, forgery or inappropriate use of an AI language model is an academic integrity matter. Conduct the College treats as unprofessional runs under the Student Standards of Conduct. A composite score below 78.0 percent or a clinical Pass/Fail decision is neither: it is a grading outcome, with no finding of wrongdoing, and answering it like a disciplinary defense wastes the appeal. Sexual misconduct is a separate route again.

Match the letter to the track before you write: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, or academic dismissal and suspension.

What should you do first?

Get the College Catalog, not just the handbook. The handbook says it is meant to be used with the Catalog, that the Catalog takes precedence where the two conflict, and then routes the material rules there by page number: readmission, re-entry, termination of enrollment, the Academic Appeals Policy and academic dismissal. The document published online is not the operative one for an appeal. Ask in writing for the Catalog edition in force on your incident date.

Then collect the syllabus, the grading rubric and the clinical evaluation. In a clinical failure the rubric’s critical elements are usually the whole case: the question is not whether you were good but whether a specific element was marked unsatisfactory, and on what evidence. Preserve drafts, version history, learning-management timestamps, dosage calculation attempts and every written clinical evaluation. Do not sit for a meeting before you know what is alleged. If the accusation rests on a Turnitin percentage or an AI detector, read the page on AI accusations first; the handbook itself describes Turnitin as reporting a percentage of matching text, which is a measurement, not a finding of plagiarism.

What does Denver College of Nursing’s own policy actually say?

Conduct and academic policy sit in one document here, which is why the same link appears twice below. It is candid about the standards it sets, but it does not publish the procedure that decides an appeal.

• Conduct office: none is named for discipline. The published document is the DCN Student Handbook 2025-2026, which sends academic complaints to the professor first and non-academic complaints to the relevant department director, and names the Dean of Nursing, the Campus President, the Program Director and the Director of Student Services.
• Governing policy: the Student Handbook and the College Catalog together, with the Catalog controlling where they conflict. The handbook says the behaviors counting as violations are listed in the Catalog under Student Conduct Policies, so the prohibited-conduct list is in the document you cannot read online.
• Academic integrity: published in the handbook. It covers cheating, plagiarism including self-plagiarism and both intentional and unintentional sharing of your own work, unpermitted collaboration, forging assignments or health provider documents, sharing test answers, misrepresentation of identity, and inappropriate use of AI-powered language models such as ChatGPT. Reporting is mandatory for anyone who observes a violation, and sanctions run from a warning to dismissal. A student in violation during class, laboratory, simulation or clinical time is excused immediately from the site while the violation is reviewed, which is an interim removal without the label.
• Appeal window: the handbook publishes none. No campus-specific day-count located. The Academic Appeals Policy sits in the Catalog, so request the Catalog and the deadline in writing the day a decision arrives, and keep the reply.
• Standard of proof: the handbook states none. No campus-specific standard of proof located; ask in writing which standard the decision-maker will apply. In a sexual-misconduct case, if C.R.S. § 23-5-146 reaches this institution, (3)(d)(II) fixes preponderance by statute.
• Advisor: the handbook does not say whether you may bring an advisor, whether the advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak. No campus-specific advisor rule located. Colorado is not a right-to-counsel state, and in the one area it does legislate, § 23-5-146(3)(d)(IV) lets an advisor attend but bars that advisor from speaking for the student.
• Academic standing: published in the same student handbook. Pre-licensure progression requires 78.0 percent on the composite examination and quiz score, 78.0 percent on the composite course grade, and a Pass in clinical, simulation and skills laboratory; the RN to BSN track requires 78 percent and the MSN 70 percent. Academic dismissal and the appeal from it are in the Catalog, not the handbook.
• Disability accommodations: the handbook names the President as the College’s ADA representative and sends students seeking academic adjustments or auxiliary aids there with documentation. It also points to the Catalog’s Essential Functions of Nursing Practice, where a technical-standards dispute is fought. Put disability in the record early as 504 and ADA accommodations, not as mitigation after a finding.

The access problem is worth stating plainly. The handbook is published; the Catalog that overrides it, and that carries the conduct list, the appeal policy and the dismissal rules, is not. Request it in writing, in the edition in force on your incident date, and keep the response. A rule a student cannot read is not adequate published notice, and a specific written promise that was not honored is exactly what University of Denver v. Doe made enforceable.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Denver College of Nursing — 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. Because the College is private there is no Fourteenth Amendment theory, and the contract claim is a state-law claim. Almost none of these matters end in a courtroom. What decides them is the 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 inside the meeting turns on a policy the College does not publish online. Some tracks allow an advisor who may be an attorney, some a silent advisor, some none, and asking in writing beforehand is the only way to know. In a nursing case, negotiating how a dismissal is recorded and described often matters as much as the finding, because the Board of Nursing will read it.

The federal money on the line at DCN

Denver College of Nursing students borrowed $8 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — 737 with subsidized and 787 with unsubsidized loans, plus $772,000 in 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. For health-professional students the timing rules bite hardest: remediation terms, leaves, and repeated courses all feed the federal pace-of-completion math. 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.

One number worth knowing: on the Department’s financial responsibility test, Denver College of Nursing’s most recent published composite score is –0.5 (fiscal year 2022–23) — below the 1.0 line on the –1.0-to-3.0 scale, which means the school participates in the federal aid programs only under conditions the Department sets, such as extra monitoring or financial protection (34 C.F.R. §§ 668.171, 668.175). The scores run about two years behind and are one signal, not a verdict. How to read them: 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). University-wide federal Direct Loan totals.

Other Colorado schools

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 schools:

• DU Sturm College of Law
• University of Colorado Law School
• Arizona College of Nursing Aurora

Common questions about Denver College of Nursing student cases

Where are Denver College of Nursing’s conduct and academic policies published?

Both live in one document, the DCN Student Handbook, which is why a single link covers conduct and academic standing. But the handbook says the College Catalog takes precedence where the two conflict, and it routes the prohibited-conduct list, the Academic Appeals Policy and academic dismissal to the Catalog by page number. The Catalog is the operative document for an appeal, and it is not published at the handbook address, so request it in writing.

What happens if I fail a clinical at Denver College of Nursing?

Clinical, simulation and skills laboratory performance is graded Pass or Fail against rubrics that identify critical elements which must be judged satisfactory, and the handbook states that failure of any of them fails the entire course. Separately, a pre-licensure student must reach a composite examination and quiz score of 78.0 percent and a composite course grade of 78.0 percent. And if unprofessional or disrespectful conduct causes the College to lose a clinical site, the handbook says the student will be dismissed from the program.

Can I sue Denver College of Nursing over an unfair dismissal process?

In Colorado the claim against a private school is contract, not negligence. University of Denver v. Doe, 2024 CO 27, held that a private university’s promise of a thorough, impartial and fair investigation, read with the specific requirements in its own procedures, can be definite enough to be an enforceable contract, and it allowed contract and good faith and fair dealing claims to proceed. The same decision held a university owes no extra-contractual duty of reasonable care in adopting and implementing fair procedures.

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.