Albizu University Miami Student Defense Lawyer

Albizu University’s Miami campus is a private non-profit institution in Miami-Dade County that offers graduate and doctoral programs, most prominently in clinical psychology. It participates in federal student aid. Federal disputes go to the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.

Why a psychology dismissal is not like other dismissals

In most student defense cases, money is a real remedy. In doctoral psychology it is close to worthless on its own, and understanding why should shape everything you do from the first week. Florida’s licensure statute makes the degree — from a specific kind of program, held at a specific time — an absolute precondition. No amount of compensation substitutes for it, and as set out below, not even the licensing board has the power to waive it. That means the only remedy worth fighting for is one that repairs the academic record: reinstatement, a negotiated path to completion, a corrected transcript, the degree conferred. Everything else is consolation.

Psychology licensure has hard statutory gates that no settlement can move

Chapter 490, Florida Statutes, is unusually rigid about where the doctorate came from, and the rigidity is what makes a dismissal or a delay so costly. Section 490.003(3)(a) defines the qualifying degree as a Psy.D., an Ed.D. in psychology, or a Ph.D. in psychology from a program that held both institutional accreditation from a federally recognized agency and programmatic accreditation from the American Psychological Association at the time the applicant was enrolled and graduated. The accreditation has to have existed during your enrollment; it is not enough that the program obtained it later.

Florida appellate law shows how hard that gate is. Prevor v. Department of Health, Board of Psychology, 201 So. 3d 97 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016), upheld denial of licensure by endorsement to a psychologist with more than twenty years of licensed practice, because her doctoral program was not APA-accredited when she was enrolled and graduated. Grier v. State, Agency for Health Care Administration, Board of Psychology, 704 So. 2d 1072 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998), held that an internship completed after graduation could not stand in for the internship the doctoral program itself was required to include. And Abramson v. Florida Psychological Association, 634 So. 2d 610 (Fla. 1994), struck down a settlement in which the Board had granted licenses to applicants who did not meet the statutory educational requirements — the Board has no power to license by agreement around the statute.

Read those three together and the strategy becomes clear. Because no one, including the Board, can waive the education requirement, the only remedy that is worth anything is one that repairs the academic record itself: reinstatement, a negotiated completion, a corrected transcript, a degree conferred. A cash settlement that leaves you without the qualifying degree has bought you nothing you can license on. That is a very different negotiating posture from an ordinary tuition dispute, and it should shape the first letter, not the last.

There is a countervailing line worth knowing, because it is the one route in. Where a degree is not APA-accredited, the question is whether the program is “comparable,” and Florida courts have refused to let the Board decide that on paper. Moorehead v. Department of Professional Regulation, 503 So. 2d 1318 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), held that “comparable to” means similar rather than equivalent and that a hearing officer’s factual finding of comparability bound the Board; the second appeal, 550 So. 2d 521 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989), confirmed comparability is a mixed question needing genuine fact-finding. Aguilera v. Department of Health, Board of Psychology, 743 So. 2d 1153 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999), reversed a denial issued without an evidentiary hearing for the same reason. If comparability is your issue, you are entitled to a hearing at the Division of Administrative Hearings, not a letter.

One more deadline catches people who are otherwise fine. Rule 64B19-11.005 requires at least one year or 2,000 hours of postdoctoral supervised experience, and rule 64B19-11.0075 directs the Board to close the file and enter a final order of denial if that evidence is not submitted within twenty-four months of the letter approving you for examination. A dismissal, a suspension or a lost practicum placement that eats into that window can end the licensure path on timing alone, even after the academic dispute is resolved in your favor. Section 490.0051 provisional licensure is the mechanism most people are using to accumulate those hours, which is why an interruption to it is not a scheduling inconvenience.

The practicum and internship are where most of these disputes actually start

Very few doctoral psychology students are dismissed for failing coursework. The disputes cluster at the clinical stages, and they follow recognizable patterns. A practicum or internship site raises a concern and the program treats the site’s account as settled without independently examining it. A supervisor relationship breaks down and the resulting evaluation blends clinical assessment with personal friction. A remediation plan is imposed with terms that are vague, unmeasurable, or impossible to satisfy inside the time given — and then failure to satisfy it becomes the ground for dismissal. Or a “professional competence” or “fitness” concern is raised, which is the most serious category because it is elastic enough to absorb almost anything and it follows you to every other program you apply to.

In each of those, the productive questions are documentary and they are the same ones. Was the concern reduced to writing at the time, or reconstructed afterwards? Did the remediation plan state what you had to do, by when, and how it would be measured? Was there an interim review before the terminal decision, and did the handbook require one? Was the committee composed as the handbook specifies? Did you get the layer of review above the program that the handbook advertises? Those are contract terms. Whether the clinical judgment about your competence was correct is, under Tercier and Jallali, largely beyond a court’s reach — so the case is built on the procedure, not on the judgment.

Graduate and professional students are in a different position from undergraduates

Two things change once the program is a master’s, a doctorate or a professional credential. The first is that the decision is usually made by a small number of people who all know each other and know you — a program director, a committee chair, one or two faculty. That concentration cuts both ways. It means the record is short and often informal, which makes an inconsistency easy to find; it also means a personal conflict can drive an outcome that is then written up in academic language, and untangling the two is most of the work.

The second is that the sunk cost is enormous and largely non-transferable. Coursework toward a specific degree, a completed comprehensive exam, an approved prospectus, a half-finished thesis, an internship or practicum placement secured through the program — very little of that moves to another institution. That is why Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), matters more at this level than any other Florida authority. Sharick allowed a dismissed student to recover the lost value of the degree itself, not merely the tuition paid, where the dismissal breached the institution’s own contract with him. The remedy is real, and its existence is often the only thing that makes a school negotiate.

What Florida courts will not do is second-guess an academic judgment they consider genuinely academic. The productive line of attack is almost never “the committee was wrong about my work.” It is that the institution did not follow its own published procedure — the notice it promised, the committee composition it specified, the review layer it advertised, the timeline in its own handbook. Those are contract terms, and they are the terms a court will read.

What a Florida court will and will not review

Your relationship with a private licensed school is contractual, not constitutional. Fourteenth Amendment due process constrains state actors, and a private institution is not one, so the argument is built on the enrollment agreement, the catalog and the handbook rather than on due process. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), established both that the relationship is contractual and that damages can reach the lost value of the credential itself, not just tuition paid.

The limit on that is the part students are rarely told. In Tercier v. University of Miami, 383 So. 3d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) — a nursing dismissal — the Third District confirmed that judicial review of a private institution’s academic determination is confined to whether it was arbitrary and capricious, irrational, made in bad faith, or in violation of the constitution or a statute. Jallali v. Nova Southeastern University, 992 So. 2d 338 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) says the same thing from the other direction: schools get wide latitude to set and apply academic requirements, and the student’s implied duty is to comply with rules the school may lawfully change.

The practical translation is short. “The faculty graded me unfairly” loses. “The school did not do what its own published policy said it would do” is the claim that survives, and it is why the first thing worth doing is reading the catalog edition that was in force when you enrolled against what actually happened to you. Tercier carries a second lesson too: the court noted that claims not briefed on appeal were treated as abandoned. Arguments have to be raised, and preserved, at each level — including inside the school’s own process.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

• Resolve the arbitration question first, from the agreement the student actually signed.
• Assemble the enrollment agreement, catalog and program handbook for the correct edition, and pin down the promises about process.
• Test the progression arithmetic — withdrawals, repeats and clinical failures are often counted in ways the handbook does not authorize.
• Use the Commission for Independent Education complaint route where the school is CIE-licensed, in parallel with the civil claim.
• Press on the wording of the decision letter, which follows the student into every future licensure and transfer application.

Related pages

Florida student defense

Other Florida universities

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 Florida universities:

• Ana G. Méndez University Florida
• Atlantis University Miami
• Ave Maria University
• Barry University
• Chamberlain University Florida
• Edward Waters University

Common questions about Albizu University Miami cases

I was dismissed from a doctoral psychology program. Is money a real remedy?

Rarely on its own. Chapter 490 makes a qualifying doctoral degree an absolute precondition to licensure, and no settlement can substitute for it. Abramson v. Florida Psychological Association held that even the Board cannot grant licensure by agreement to applicants who do not meet the statutory requirements. So the remedy worth pursuing is one that repairs the academic record — reinstatement, completion, a corrected transcript, the degree.

Does it matter when my program held APA accreditation?

It matters absolutely. Section 490.003(3)(a) defines the qualifying degree by reference to a program that held both institutional and APA programmatic accreditation at the time the applicant was enrolled and graduated. Prevor v. Department of Health upheld denial to a psychologist with over twenty years of practice because her program was not APA-accredited during her enrollment. Later accreditation does not cure it.

My degree is not from an APA-accredited program. Is that the end of it?

Not necessarily. The alternative route is comparability, and Florida courts have refused to let the Board decide that on paper. Moorehead held that “comparable to” means similar rather than equivalent and that a hearing officer’s factual finding bound the Board; Aguilera reversed a denial issued without an evidentiary hearing. If comparability is your issue you are entitled to a hearing at the Division of Administrative Hearings.

Can I do my internship after graduating instead?

Not as a substitute for an internship the doctoral program itself was required to include. Grier v. Agency for Health Care Administration held exactly that. This is why an interruption to a program-embedded internship is a licensure problem and not merely a scheduling problem.

What is the twenty-four month deadline I keep hearing about?

Rule 64B19-11.005 requires at least one year or 2,000 hours of postdoctoral supervised experience, and rule 64B19-11.0075 directs the Board to close the file and issue a final order of denial if that evidence is not submitted within twenty-four months of the letter approving you for examination. A dismissal, suspension or lost placement that consumes that window can end the licensure path on timing alone.

What should I do first if a fitness or professional competence concern has been raised?

Get everything into writing immediately — ask for the concern, the standard being applied, and any remediation requirements in a written document, and respond in writing. Fitness findings are the most damaging category because they are elastic and they follow you to other programs. A vague concern that never gets written down is much harder to defend against later, and much easier to challenge now.