CF Jack Wilkinson Levy Campus Student Defense Lawyer

The Jack Wilkinson Levy Campus in Chiefland is the College of Central Florida location that catches lawyers out. CF is an Ocala college; its Ocala and Citrus County campuses sit in the Middle District of Florida, Ocala Division. Levy County does not. Under 28 U.S.C. section 89(a) Levy County is in the Northern District of Florida, and the Northern District assigns it to the Gainesville Division.

Why the Levy Campus is filed in a different federal court

A student disciplined at Chiefland and a student disciplined at Ocala are governed by the same handbook, taught under the same academic rules, and answerable to the same college — but if either sues in federal court, they are in different districts, before different judges, under different local rules, and subject to different district-level precedent. The Eleventh Circuit sits above both, so the controlling appellate law is the same; everything below that is not.

Two things follow from that. First, the campus a case arises at — not the address on the college’s letterhead — decides where a federal suit belongs, because 28 U.S.C. section 1391(b) lays venue where a substantial part of the events occurred. Second, no campus in the Florida College System publishes its own student conduct code, so the rules that decide a dismissal here are the college-wide code plus whatever program handbook governs the course of study. Those two documents often disagree, and the handbook is usually what the programme actually applies.

What the campus actually does

Levy is a small instructional campus rather than a full-service one, which cuts both ways. Fewer programmes means fewer of the selective, handbook-driven dismissals that dominate this area of practice; but a small campus also means a smaller administration, fewer people who have run a hearing before, and a higher chance that the college-wide procedure is applied loosely or from memory. Procedural defects are easier to find at a campus that rarely holds a hearing.

This is a public college, so Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) applies in full — including subsection (3)(g), the right to be accompanied by counsel at a disciplinary proceeding, and subsection (3)(b), which puts the burden on the college rather than the student. What those rights do and do not include is set out on the Florida student defence page.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

  • Fix the venue question before anything is filed — the answer here is not the one CF’s address implies.
  • Get the college-wide code and the programme handbook side by side and identify which one the college is actually applying.
  • Hold the college to its own notice, hearing and appeal steps, which is where small-campus cases most often break down.
  • Preserve the record for certiorari review in the circuit court under Fla. R. App. P. 9.100(c), which runs 30 days from rendition and is easy to lose.

The main college page is here: College of Central Florida student defence.

Other Florida colleges

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 colleges:

Common questions about CF Levy Campus cases

Does it matter which CF campus my case came from?

Yes, for anything filed in federal court. Levy County is in the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division, while CF’s Ocala and Citrus campuses are in the Middle District, Ocala Division. Filing in the wrong district costs a transfer motion at best and dismissal for improper venue at worst.

Does the Levy Campus have its own conduct code?

No. No campus in the Florida College System publishes its own student conduct code. The college-wide code governs, together with any programme handbook for your course of study.

Can I bring a lawyer to a CF disciplinary hearing?

Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3)(g) gives a student at a Florida public college the right to be accompanied by counsel at a disciplinary proceeding. What counsel may do in the room varies, and colleges frequently read that right more narrowly than the statute allows.

How long do I have to challenge a decision?

Shorter than most students expect. Internal appeal windows at Florida colleges commonly run five to ten days, and certiorari review in the circuit court runs 30 days from rendition under Fla. R. App. P. 9.100(c). Work to the shortest deadline any document states.