Webber International University Student Defense Lawyer

Students call about Webber International University at three points: when a faculty member files an academic integrity report, when the Office of Student Affairs opens a conduct matter, and, usually too late, after the Academic Standing Committee has already entered a dismissal. All three run on short clocks, and all three turn on a written record built in the first week.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Webber International University?

Webber is a private nonprofit university, and that single fact sets the frame. A private university is not a state actor, so the Fourteenth Amendment does not reach it and there is no constitutional due process claim. 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 a privately conducted institution of learning 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 second point is the one Florida students get wrong. Fla. Stat. § 1006.60(3) is a real statutory due process code — 7 business days’ 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 a senior administrator must hear, and at § 1006.60(3)(g) the right to an “advisor, advocate, or 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 Webber, whose catalog and campus handbook are the whole of your protection.

What those documents give you is 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 student dismissed two months before graduation over one failing grade won a jury finding that the dismissal was “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 at 21 So. 3d 41 (2009).

Two limits matter. Not every catalog sentence is a promise: 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,” not “[g]eneral policy statements and broad and unspecified procedures.” A breach of contract claim is built on numbered steps the university wrote down and skipped. And you must finish the internal process first: the Gamma Phi line will set aside sanctions built on “an ex parte fact-finding process which was neither adequate nor fair,” 703 So. 2d 497 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997), but will not intervene before “exhaustion of an available administrative remedy,” 718 So. 2d 910 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998).

Where do Webber International University cases come from?

Webber enrolls about 880 students. It is primarily a business school, with degrees in business management, computer information systems, education and health services administration, and it runs a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program on the Florida campus. It competes in the NAIA, and at a residential college this size athletic participation, housing and institutional aid usually ride on the same decision as the discipline.

One structural fact matters before you read anything. The university runs two campuses, Babson Park in Florida and the St. Andrews campus in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and one catalog governs both. It names the Academic Standing Committee for the Florida campus and the Faculty Executive Committee for North Carolina, and uses “dismissal” on the Florida campus where North Carolina says “suspension.” A Babson Park student reading a policy that mentions Laurinburg has the right document, but only some of it applies.

The cases fall into three groups. Academic integrity referrals are the largest, and Webber’s policy is unusually harsh in its arithmetic. Academic standing decisions come next, and they end enrollment with no hearing. Conduct charges are third, and the catalog does not contain them at all: it routes conduct, grievance procedures and drug policy to the separate Student Handbook for each campus. In a sequenced program one term out is usually a year, which is why the sanction is often more negotiable, and more important, than the finding — particularly in a nursing program dismissal, where clinical placement availability decides when you can return.

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

The label on the letter picks the decision-maker, the deadline and the protections. An allegation of plagiarism, cheating or fabrication is academic misconduct under the Academic Integrity Policy. A behavior charge is a conduct code charge under your campus handbook. A cumulative grade point average below the catalog thresholds is academic dismissal and suspension decided by the Academic Standing Committee. Losing federal aid for pace or grade point average is a SAP appeal to the Director of Financial Aid, and the catalog says that if that appeal is denied the decision is final.

The distinction is Florida law, not a formality. Beheshtitabar v. Florida State University, 432 So. 2d 166 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983), applying Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), holds an academic dismissal is not a disciplinary one and needs no hearing, because it “requires an expert evaluation of cumulative information.” Answering a grade-based dismissal as though it were a conduct charge spends the one written response you get.

What should you do first?

Get the catalog in force on your incident date and your campus Student Handbook, because they are different documents and the conduct procedure is only in the second. Read the appeal section first. Then count your violations: the Academic Integrity Policy is cumulative across the curriculum and the whole time you are enrolled, so a first-year incident and a senior-year incident are two.

Put the dates in writing and preserve the record: drafts, version history, learning management timestamps, group chats and instructor correspondence. Do not sit for a meeting before you know what is alleged. One warning about Webber’s written complaint procedure: it will not consider anonymous complaints, complaints filed for someone else, or complaints sent electronically or by fax, it requires a signed and dated writing, and it asks the complainant to describe “any external channels the complainant is pursuing, including legal action.” Read that requirement before you file anything. If the allegation rests on a similarity report or an AI-detection score, read the page on AI accusations first: the catalog treats material produced by AI tools without proper citation as an integrity violation.

What does Webber International University’s own policy actually say?

The catalog is the academic contract, and it is precise where it matters. It is also explicit that it is not the whole set.

• Conduct office: the Dean of Student Affairs of your campus takes complaints and appeals involving student life; academic matters go to the Dean of Academic Affairs, athletics to the Athletic Director, and Title IX to the campus Title IX compliance officer. An unresolved complaint may then go to the campus president in writing.
• Governing policy: the university catalog plus the separate Student Handbook for the Florida campus. The catalog says conduct procedures, grievance procedures and the student drug policy live in that handbook, not in the catalog. No Florida College System rule or Board of Governors regulation governs a private university.
• Academic integrity: a fixed three-step sanction. A first violation is a zero on the assignment; a second, in the same course or any other, is an F for the course; a third is expulsion. Violations accumulate across the curriculum and across years, and attempted dishonesty is treated as dishonesty. The procedure for handling a case is in each campus handbook.
• Appeal window: the catalog gives two different figures for the same decision. It says an appeal of the committee’s decision “must be received in the Office of Academic Affairs within two weeks of the student’s receipt of formal notification,” and then that a student may appeal an academic dismissal “within 30 days of notification of dismissal.” Treat two weeks as your deadline and confirm it in writing. A final grade review is a separate route with its own 30-day window.
• Standard of proof: none is published for a conduct or integrity finding. The catalog publishes one for a grade review, and it runs the other way: the student “bears the burden of proof in establishing that the grade was undeserved,” and “[f]ailing to prove by preponderance of the evidence, the grade must stand,” with a presumption that the faculty member graded “for good cause and without bias.” At a Florida public college § 1006.60(3)(b) would put the burden on the institution.
• Advisor: the catalog does not say whether you may bring an advisor, whether that advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak. Ask your campus Dean of Student Affairs in writing before any meeting. A public Florida college could restrict none of the three under § 1006.60(3)(g).
• Academic standing: published in the catalog. Academic warning follows a semester grade point average below 2.00. Probation follows a cumulative average below 1.59 through 12 attempted hours, 1.85 through 24, 1.93 through 36, 1.97 through 48 and 2.00 thereafter. A semester below 1.00 exposes a student to dismissal, as does failing the terms of probation. Reinstatement may be sought one term later with evidence of academic rehabilitation, and a second dismissal may be permanent.
• Disability accommodations: Disability Services, under the ADA and the ADA Amendments Act. Documentation requirements come from the Office of Academic Affairs, and on the Florida campus eligibility is determined by the Academic Dean.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Webber International 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

What a lawyer can do inside the room turns on the campus handbook, which the catalog does not reproduce. Outside the room it does not depend on policy at all. Webber’s integrity policy counts violations rather than weighing them, so the fight over whether an earlier incident was ever properly recorded is often worth more than the argument about the current one. The same is true of academic standing: the committee reviews the record, so the record is the case.

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:

• West Coast University Miami
• AdventHealth University
• Albizu University Miami
• Ana G. Méndez University Florida
• Atlantis University Miami
• Ave Maria University

Common questions about Webber International University student cases

How many academic integrity violations does it take to be expelled from Webber?

Three. Under the catalog a first violation is a grade of zero on the assignment, a second is a grade of F for the course, and a third is expulsion from the University. Violations accumulate across the whole curriculum and across your entire enrollment, so an incident in your first year and one in your senior year count as two. Attempted academic dishonesty, even if unsuccessful, is treated as dishonesty. The procedure for handling a case is in your campus student handbook, not the catalog.

How long do I have to appeal an academic dismissal at Webber?

The catalog gives two answers for the same decision, so treat the shorter one as your deadline. It says an appeal of the committee decision must reach the Office of Academic Affairs within two weeks of your receipt of formal notification, and it also says a student may appeal an academic dismissal by letter to the Campus Academic Dean within 30 days of notification. Two weeks is the safe reading. Confirm your deadline in writing the day the letter arrives.

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

No. Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) requires 7 business days of written notice, disclosure of inculpatory and exculpatory evidence 5 business days out, 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. Webber is a private nonprofit, so neither that statute nor the Fourteenth Amendment applies. Your protections come from the catalog and your campus student handbook.

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.