Highland Community College: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Highland Community College?

Highland Community College is a public community college in Freeport, in Stephenson County — Illinois Community College District No. 519 — accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, with an ACEN-accredited associate degree nursing program. One sentence in its 2025–2027 catalog shapes conduct and misconduct appeals: at the Student Judicial Review Board, “Decisions by faculty or administration are presumed correct and it is the burden of the student to produce evidence” to overturn them.

Highland Community College is a public community college, so two bodies of law apply on top of its own policies. The first is constitutional due process: the college is a state actor, and Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), requires notice of the charge and a meaningful chance to respond. The second is the deference courts give genuine academic judgment — Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), and Regents of the University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985). In the Seventh Circuit a due process claim also needs a protected interest: there is no free-standing property interest in a public education, and a student has to point to a specific promise the college made — Charleston v. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 741 F.3d 769 (7th Cir. 2013).

Illinois law treats a community college differently from a state university, and the difference matters. A community college district is a local public entity, not the State: it falls under the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/1-206, not the Court of Claims Act, so a breach-of-contract claim against it is brought in circuit court — see Luciano v. Waubonsee Community College, 245 Ill. App. 3d 1077 (1993). Review of the board’s disciplinary decision does not run through the Administrative Review Law, which the Public Community College Act does not adopt for these matters; the route is a common-law writ of certiorari (or mandamus) in the circuit court — Maas v. Board of Trustees of Community College District No. 529, 94 Ill. App. 3d 562 (1981). And in federal court the district is not an arm of the State and has no Eleventh Amendment immunity — Hostrop v. Board of Junior College District No. 515, 523 F.2d 569 (7th Cir. 1975) — so under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), it can be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 where its own policy or custom caused the constitutional violation.

A federal claim arising at Highland Community College is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — Stephenson County sits in its Western Division under 28 U.S.C. § 93(a), and the statute fixes the places of holding court for that division at Freeport and Rockford. I am a member of the general bar of that court, admitted on my Florida license under its Local Rule 83.10, which opens the general bar to an attorney in good standing before the highest court of any state. That means a Title IX, Section 504, ADA or due process complaint for a Highland Community College student is one I file and litigate under my own name, with no pro hac vice motion. The Northern District abrogated its local-counsel designation rule in July 2023, so a member of its bar with no office in the district no longer has to designate local counsel. One limit, stated plainly: the court keeps a separate trial bar, and under Local Rule 83.12 a general-bar member who is not on it — that is me — appears alone in everything except testimonial proceedings, meaning evidentiary hearings and trial, where a trial-bar member must sit as advisor unless the judge grants the rule’s narrow waiver.

The appeal board presumes the college is right

The Vice President of Student Development and Support Services handles Code of Conduct cases: you are notified within seven College business days, meet, and receive a written decision. The appeal goes “in writing to the College’s Affirmative Action Officer” within seven College business days “from the issuance of the decision.” Dismissal decisions “require a hearing,” suspension appeals “must be heard,” and other sanctions “may or may not be heard.” The catalog sets the hearing within ten College business days in one paragraph and “within 10 school days” in another. No standard of proof is published for conduct cases.

The seven-member Board — the Affirmative Action Officer presiding, two administrators, two faculty and two students — receives before the hearing the documents you file “within 48 hours of filing” the appeal, and your witness list. The hearing is recorded verbatim, and the burden is yours. An advisor, parent or guest may attend but is “not permitted to speak or intervene,” while the Board may consult “the College attorney.” The decision comes within 24 hours and is “the final internal appeal opportunity.” The President may impose an interim suspension for an “immediate and serious threat,” with no published appeal. See conduct code defense.

Academic misconduct: “knowingly,” generative AI and the XF

Misconduct occurs when integrity principles are “knowingly violated,” and the list includes “Using generative AI to create any academic coursework, unless otherwise indicated in the course syllabus” — so the syllabus decides much of an AI accusation. Tier 1 is the instructor’s call, up to a failing course grade. Tier 2, imposed by the Vice President/Chief Academic Officer for repeat offenses or conduct “deemed egregious,” means academic misconduct probation, temporary suspension or permanent dismissal, can put an “XF” on the transcript until remediation, and bars extracurricular activities. A grade penalty is contested through the grade complaint process; a warning through the non-grade complaint process.

Grade complaints: five business days a step, and no new arguments

Raise a grade with the instructor “within five (5) college business days of a contested grade being made available,” then go to the dean, the Vice President/Chief Academic Officer and the Grade Appeals Committee, each within five College business days. The committee decides within ten College business days, “final and binding,” and “No additional basis or justification for the complaint shall be admitted.” Non-grade complaints must be raised within seven College business days and end at the Judicial Review Board. Beware Highland’s Complaint Process web page: it links a PDF of a different, apparently older version in “school days,” with appeals to an Executive Vice President and a committee that includes the College President and a trustee. See grade appeals.

Academic standing and nursing

Probation follows a cumulative GPA below 1.75 after 12 attempted hours or below 2.00 after 24. Suspension, for one semester, follows three semesters on probation below the minimums with no academic progress and a cumulative GPA under 2.0; for appeals the catalog says only to contact the Director of Enrollment and Records, with no deadline or standard. In nursing, dropping, withdrawing from or failing any core course means withdrawing from the program; the details sit in a Nursing Student Handbook that is not posted online. The listed physical demands, such as lifting 50 pounds, apply “with or without reasonable accommodations.” See nursing dismissals.

Sexual misconduct: an investigator, the President, and no live hearing

For sexual misconduct, the federal rule is the 2020 Title IX regulation: the 2024 rule was vacated nationwide on January 9, 2025, in Tennessee v. Cardona, and on September 29, 2026 the Department of Education formally repealed it and restored the pre-2024 text (91 Fed. Reg. 61,308). Highland’s published procedure, Policy 3.27 (revised March 18, 2026), is investigator-based: the respondent receives the complaint within five working days and has 15 calendar days to respond; findings on a preponderance go to the President, who decides within 15 calendar days. Advisors may be present but “may not speak for the individual or act as an advocate.” No live hearing or cross-examination is described. An appeal letter goes to the Title IX Coordinator, who convenes a “sexual misconduct judicial review panel”; no deadline is stated beyond “timely.” Policy 3.28 promises a published Title IX grievance process, so ask in writing which procedure governs. See Title IX cases.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading Highland’s rules against what was done, writing the response or appeal on the grounds they recognize, preserving Title IX, Section 504, ADA and FERPA issues, and finding comparators whose similar cases drew lighter sanctions.

Two moves are specific here. Because the Board presumes the decision correct, an appeal has to come with evidence, not grievance: build the record at the Vice President’s meeting and file documents and witnesses within 48 hours of appealing. And in an academic case, hold the instructor to “knowingly” and to what the syllabus actually said about AI.

The limit: no discovery, no rules of evidence, and the college decides its own case, so the written campus record is what a court will see.

The one Illinois statute that gives you procedure

Illinois has no general statute setting notice periods, hearing formats, standards of proof or appeal rights for college students. The Illinois School Code, 105 ILCS 5, has a detailed suspension and expulsion scheme, and it applies to elementary and secondary schools, not here. The exception is the Preventing Sexual Violence in Higher Education Act, 110 ILCS 155, and it is a real one. It reaches every higher education institution in the state — public universities, community colleges, and private not-for-profit and for-profit institutions alike — and it requires timely written notice of the allegations to all parties, an investigation that is adequate, reliable and impartial, written notice of the outcome, and appeal rights. It requires the school to make confidential advisors available, trained to a statutory standard and kept separate from the people deciding the case. Both parties are entitled to an advisor of their choice, and that advisor may be an attorney — although the institution may limit how far an attorney-advisor participates in a hearing, which is why Highland Community College’s own rule on that, set out above, still governs what your lawyer may do in the room. The standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence, applied the same way to both sides.

Highland’s rule is strict: in sexual misconduct cases an advisor “may not speak for the individual or act as an advocate,” and at the Judicial Review Board an advisor may not speak at all.

What to do first

1. Count seven College business days from the Vice President’s decision, and appeal in writing to the Affirmative Action Officer.
2. File documents and a witness list within 48 hours of appealing.
3. Raise a grade within five College business days of its posting.
4. Save the syllabus in any AI or integrity case.
5. Ask in writing which complaint and Title IX procedures govern, and compare colleges on the Illinois student defense hub.

One honest caveat about geography. Illinois has three federal districts. I am admitted to two of them, the Northern and the Southern. A federal claim arising at a school in Springfield, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana or the Quad Cities falls in the Central District; I am not a member of that bar, and those matters I handle with local counsel in that district or by pro hac vice admission. Appeals from the Northern District go to the Seventh Circuit, which keeps its own bar; my appellate admission is in the Eleventh. I say so before a retainer rather than after.

Where I am licensed. I am licensed to practice law in Florida. I am admitted to the bars of the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida, the District of Colorado, the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the District of Nebraska, the District of New Mexico, and the Western District of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Federal court admission is not a license to practice the law of the state in which the court sits. I am not licensed in Illinois and do not advise on Illinois state law or appear in Illinois state court.

Other schools in the Northern District of Illinois

Every college writes its own conduct, academic-standing and appeal rules, and the deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other community colleges in the Northern District of Illinois:

• Illinois Valley Community College
• Joliet Junior College
• Kennedy-King College (City Colleges of Chicago)
• Kishwaukee College
• Malcolm X College (City Colleges of Chicago)
• McHenry County College

Common questions about Highland Community College student cases

How long do I have to appeal at Highland Community College?

Seven College business days from the Vice President’s conduct decision, filed in writing with the Affirmative Action Officer. Grade complaints move in steps of five College business days, and non-grade complaints must be raised within seven. The sexual misconduct procedure says only that appeals must be “timely,” and the academic suspension rules publish no deadline at all.

Can I bring a lawyer to my Highland Community College hearing?

You may bring an advisor, parent or guest to a Judicial Review Board hearing, but that person is “not permitted to speak or intervene,” and the procedure does not mention attorneys for students — though the Board may consult the College attorney. In sexual misconduct cases an advisor may be present but “may not speak for the individual or act as an advocate.”

Who has the burden of proof in a Highland Community College appeal?

You do. The catalog says decisions by faculty or administration “are presumed correct and it is the burden of the student to produce evidence” to overturn or modify them. File supporting documents with the Affirmative Action Officer within 48 hours of appealing, list your witnesses, and present everything at the first hearing date.

Can Highland Community College discipline me for using AI?

Yes. The catalog lists “Using generative AI to create any academic coursework, unless otherwise indicated in the course syllabus” as academic misconduct, while defining misconduct as a knowing violation. The instructor can impose up to a failing course grade; repeat or egregious cases go to Tier 2, where suspension, dismissal and an XF transcript notation are possible.

What standard of proof does Highland Community College use?

Highland publishes no standard of proof for conduct or academic misconduct cases, and on appeal its Judicial Review Board presumes the original decision correct. In sexual misconduct cases the investigator presents findings, and the President decides, on a preponderance of the evidence.