Southeastern University Student Defense Lawyer

Students at Southeastern University call at three moments: when a professor files an Early Alert for plagiarism or misuse of generative AI, when the Office of Community and Student Responsibility sets a hearing, and, usually too late, after an academic suspension letter arrives from the Registrar. All three run on short clocks and turn on a written record built in the first week.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Southeastern University?

Southeastern is a private nonprofit Christian university, and that single fact sets the frame. A private university is not a state actor, so the Fourteenth Amendment does not reach what it does to you and there is no constitutional due process claim to bring. Florida has said so for a century. John B. Stetson University v. Hunt, 88 Fla. 510, 102 So. 637 (1924), holds that the relation between a student and an institution of learning privately conducted is “solely contractual in character,” with “an implied condition that the student knows and will conform to the rules and regulations of the institution.” Your case is a contract case, and the contract is the catalog, the Community Covenant and the Code of Student Conduct.

The second point is the one Florida students get wrong most often. Fla. Stat. § 1006.60(3) is a real statutory due process code — 7 business days’ written notice, disclosure of the evidence including exculpatory material 5 business days out, preponderance of the evidence with the burden on the institution, an appeal of right, and at § 1006.60(3)(g) the right to a “legal representative” at “any proceeding, whether formal or informal,” who “may directly participate in all aspects of the proceeding, including the presentation of relevant information and questioning of witnesses.” It reaches every Florida College System institution and every state university. It does not reach Southeastern, and there is no certiorari petition to file because there is no state action to review. Your protections come from the university’s own published documents and nowhere else. That is the most useful thing to understand about your case.

Those documents are still worth enforcing, because Florida enforces private-school contracts with real money. In Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), a fourth-year osteopathic medical student was dismissed about two months before graduation over one failing rotation grade. A jury found the dismissal “arbitrary, capricious, and/or lacking any discernable rational basis,” and the Third District held his damages were not capped at tuition: lost future earning capacity is recoverable. On retrial a jury awarded $813,000 past and $3.5 million future lost earnings, affirmed in Nova Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, Inc. v. Sharick, 21 So. 3d 41 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009). Despite the name, that defendant is a different school, the institution now known as Nova Southeastern University, not Southeastern University in Lakeland. The limits are real too. Tercier v. University of Miami, No. 3D22-1334 (Fla. 3d DCA Aug. 2, 2023), holds that “only specific promises … in a school’s bulletins, circulars[,] and handbooks, which are material to the student’s relationship with the school, are enforceable,” and Gamma Phi Chapter v. University of Miami, 718 So. 2d 910 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998), says a court will not engage until the internal process finishes. A breach of contract claim is built from numbered steps Southeastern wrote down and skipped.

Where do Southeastern University cases come from?

Southeastern enrolls roughly 11,510 students on its Lakeland campus, online and at extension sites, and it is a Christ-centered university whose conduct standards say so. Every student is bound by a Community Covenant under which you agree to “[p]ractice the spiritual disciplines,” to understand that “regular attendance at church services is expected,” to “[a]dhere to guidelines of dress code,” and to refrain from alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other intoxicants and from a defined list of sexual conduct “either on or off university premises.” The catalog states that all members of the community “are expected to act in accordance with the University’s Community Covenant as well as the Code of Student Conduct.”

That is a real difference from a secular campus, and it is where a large share of the cases start. Covenant conduct is chargeable conduct, the covenant reaches off campus by its own terms, and a case can begin with something that would not be a violation anywhere else. Tercier cuts both ways here: broad covenant language is hard to enforce against the university in court, but the university enforces it against you through a code with its own procedures, and those numbered procedures are what a conduct code charge is fought over.

The other stream is academic, and the sanction that matters most there is not the grade. It is the Z grade annotation: on a Level 2 or Level 3 offense the transcript carries a Z prefix on the course grade, and the catalog says “[t]he transcript key will indicate that the Z grade annotation is assigned in cases of plagiarism and/or cheating.” After a first cheating offense the Z can be removed by completing the Ethical Academics course; after a second, “the Z grade annotation cannot be removed.” A permanent, self-explaining transcript notation is a graduate-school and licensing problem long after the course is forgotten.

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

The label on the letter picks the decision-maker, the deadline and the protections, and Southeastern runs at least four tracks. A conduct or covenant charge goes to the Office of Community and Student Responsibility, with a Hearing Panel and then an Appellate Officer. An academic dishonesty allegation starts with an Early Alert from the professor and runs through the Academic Integrity Committee, with the Provost deciding last. An academic suspension is a Registrar-side standing decision appealed to the Academic Condition Committee. Sexual misconduct runs on the Title IX track.

Answering in the wrong track spends the one response you get. Match your letter first: academic misconduct, academic dismissal and suspension, or Title IX. If the letter is ambiguous, ask in writing which policy you are charged under and keep the answer.

What should you do first?

Pull the catalog year in force when you enrolled, not the current one, because degree requirements vary by catalog year and Tercier ties the terms to “the publications of the college at the time of enrollment.” Read the appeal sections before anything else. Then get the syllabus and the assignment instructions, because Southeastern’s Generative AI Assistance policy is course-specific and an integrity case often turns on what your professor permitted in writing.

Find your deadline immediately. The conduct appeal is due “by the deadline stated in the final decision letter,” so the letter is the clock. A grade appeal must be brought “within the immediate succeeding semester” or the grade is permanent, and an academic suspension appeal is due by the date in the notice of suspension. Preserve drafts, version history, learning management timestamps, similarity reports and group chats before anything auto-deletes, and do not sit for a meeting before you know what is alleged. If the accusation rests on an AI-detection score, read the page on AI accusations first.

What does Southeastern University’s own policy actually say?

The catalog is the public document, and it is not the whole document: it sets out the appeal architecture, the integrity ladder and the standing rules, but references the Code of Student Conduct without reproducing it.

• Conduct office: the Southeastern University Catalog, whose complaint and appeal policies route discipline through the Office of Community and Student Responsibility, with a Hearing Panel below and an Appellate Officer above.
• Governing policy: the Code of Student Conduct together with the Community Covenant. The Code is not published in the catalog; request the current version in writing and keep the reply, because a code you cannot obtain is not adequate published notice. No Florida College System rule and no Board of Governors regulation governs a private university.
• Academic integrity: a three-level ladder. Level 1, a first plagiarism offense, requires the Ethical Academics course and may add a grade penalty; Level 2 adds a grade penalty and a Z grade annotation; Level 3 adds “[e]xpulsion from the University at the discretion of the Provost.” Students “may not withdraw from a course in order to avoid consequences for academic dishonesty.”
• Appeal window: no campus-specific day-count located for a conduct appeal. The catalog says appeals “must be done in writing and submitted to the Office of CSR by the deadline stated in the final decision letter,” on two grounds only, procedural misconduct by the Hearing Panel or an inappropriate outcome, with no new evidence considered, and the student “informed in writing of the outcome of any appeal within five (5) business days” of receipt of all requested information.
• Standard of proof: the catalog publishes none for the conduct process. It does say the appealing student “has the burden to establish sufficient grounds for modifying the original decision,” which is the reverse of the allocation § 1006.60(3)(b) imposes at a public Florida college.
• Advisor: the catalog does not say whether an advisor or an attorney may attend a hearing, and no campus-specific advisor rule was located. Ask in writing before the hearing. At a public Florida college the answer is set by statute under § 1006.60(3)(g). Here it is not.
• Academic standing: Southeastern publishes no separate academic standing or satisfactory academic progress policy at a public URL. The catalog’s Academic Condition process requires a 2.0 semester and cumulative GPA and runs from Academic Notice through Academic Probation I and II, each capping the load at 13 credits, to Academic Suspension and a sit-out of one regular semester, with expulsion decided by the Academic Condition Committee. Request the current policy in writing and keep the reply.
• Title IX and equal opportunity: a Title IX Director, who also sits on the Bias Incident Response Team with the Chief Diversity Officer and the Vice President of Student Development.
• Disability accommodations: the catalog publishes an ADA Appeals procedure among its complaint and appeal policies.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Southeastern University — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, where I am admitted to the bar. Polk County sits in that district, so no pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney is needed. There is no Fourteenth Amendment claim against a private university, and the contract claim under Stetson and Sharick is a state-law claim. Almost none of these reach a courtroom. 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

Two features of this policy shape the work. The appeal is limited to two grounds and to the existing record, so anything you want considered must be in the file before the Hearing Panel decides. And the most durable sanction here is a transcript notation rather than a suspension, so the useful negotiation is often about the Z and what a future registrar will see.

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:

• St. Thomas University Student Defense Lawyer (Miami Gardens)
• University of Central Florida
• University of Florida
• University of Miami
• University of South Florida
• University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences

Common questions about Southeastern University student cases

Does the Florida student due process statute protect me at Southeastern?

No. Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) requires 7 business days of notice, disclosure of exculpatory evidence, preponderance of the evidence with the burden on the institution, an appeal of right, and a legal representative who may question witnesses. It reaches only Florida College System institutions and state universities. Southeastern is a private nonprofit university, so neither that statute nor the Fourteenth Amendment applies, and there is no certiorari petition to file. Your protections come from the catalog, the Community Covenant and the Code of Student Conduct.

What is the Z grade annotation, and can it be removed?

It is a transcript notation. When Southeastern concludes that plagiarism or cheating occurred, the course grade can be recorded with a Z prefix, and the catalog says the transcript key will indicate that a Z is assigned in cases of plagiarism or cheating. After a first cheating offense the Z may be removed by successfully completing the required Ethical Academics course. After a second or subsequent offense the catalog says the annotation cannot be removed. That permanence is why the notation is usually worth more attention than the grade.

How long do I have to appeal a Southeastern conduct decision?

No campus-specific day-count is published. The catalog says an appeal must be in writing to the Office of Community and Student Responsibility by the deadline stated in your final decision letter, so read that letter first and calendar the date the day it arrives. There are only two grounds, procedural misconduct by the Hearing Panel or an inappropriate outcome, no new evidence is considered, and the Appellate Officer answers in writing within five business days of receiving everything requested.

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 Florida schools page.

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