Lewis and Clark Community College: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Lewis and Clark?

Lewis and Clark is a public community college of about 4,500 students at Godfrey, in Madison County, serving Illinois Community College District No. 536. Its published rules have a shape worth understanding before you go looking for them: the Student Conduct Code itself contains no procedure at all — no deadlines, no standard of proof, no hearing rules. Everything procedural lives in a single Student Grievance Procedure in the student handbook, and that one procedure covers academic matters, administrative matters, discipline under the Conduct Code, and discrimination alike.

Lewis and Clark Community College is a public institution, so two bodies of law apply on top of its own handbook. The first is constitutional due process: the school 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), under which an academic decision stands unless it is such a substantial departure from accepted academic norms that no professional judgment was actually exercised.

Illinois law treats a community college differently from a state university, and the difference matters. Review of the board’s disciplinary decision does not run through the Illinois Administrative Review Law, which the Public Community College Act does not adopt for these matters; the vehicle is a common-law writ of certiorari in the circuit court — Maas v. Board of Trustees of Community College District No. 529, 94 Ill. App. 3d 562 (1981) — on which the court asks whether the board proceeded legally and whether the evidence supports what it did, not whether it was right. 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, rather than the Court of Claims Act, so a breach-of-contract claim against it is brought in circuit court — Luciano v. Waubonsee Community College, 245 Ill. App. 3d 1077 (1993). And in federal court the district 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 Lewis and Clark Community College is filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois — Madison County sits in that district under 28 U.S.C. § 93(c), and the court holds sessions at East St. Louis, Benton, Alton and Cairo. I was admitted to the bar of that court on 28 August 2026 on my Florida license, under its Local Rule 83.1(a), which opens general admission to any attorney licensed in any state. That means a Title IX, Section 504, ADA or due process suit for a Lewis and Clark student is one I file and try under my own name, with no pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring attorney. It also means something most districts do not offer: Local Rule 83.1 states that parties represented by counsel who do not reside in the district are not required to retain local counsel, though the court keeps the power to order it for good cause in a particular case.

One procedure, ten school days at every level

The Student Grievance Procedure runs a consistent clock in school days — not business days, not calendar days. A school day is a day the college holds classes, so the count contracts sharply around breaks and between terms, and a deadline that looks like a fortnight in December may be much longer, or much shorter, than it appears.

• Filing and appealing: ten school days. “Grievances should be submitted in writing at each level of review within ten (10) school days of the action being grieved or within ten (10) school days of the decision on appeal.”
• The college’s response: ten school days — but note the hedge. “Written response will normally be made to the student within ten (10) school days unless circumstances require additional time for consideration.” The college’s own deadline is soft; yours is not.
• Who is attending: two days’ notice. “The appropriate Vice President must be notified within two days of the hearing regarding anyone other than the principal parties who will be attending.” The unit here is not specified. If you intend to bring anyone, give notice early and in writing.
• Decision after the hearing: five school days. The Vice President “will have five school days following the hearing to consult again with all parties, as may be necessary, and render a decision.”
• Appeal to the President: ten school days of receipt of the decision. For discrimination grievances only, the President’s decision may then go to the Board of Trustees within a further ten school days.

Lewis and Clark does not publish a minimum notice period before a hearing — you will be told the date, time, location and subject in writing, but no number of days attaches — and it publishes no standard of proof, in the Conduct Code, the Grievance Procedure or Board Policy 707. Where a public college has not committed itself in writing to a burden of proof, asking what standard will be applied, in advance and in writing, is both fair and useful.

The advisor rule that is neither a permission nor a prohibition

Most colleges in this district either grant an advisor and silence them or say nothing at all. Lewis and Clark does something in between. The Grievance Procedure describes the hearing as a meeting of “the accusers, the accused, the appropriate Vice President (or representative), advisors and assistants that either party wishes to bring.”

So advisors are plainly contemplated and plainly permitted — the language is broad, it says “either party,” and it contains no restriction on who they may be. What the college does not publish is any rule about what the advisor may do once there: there is no silence rule, and no participation rule either. In practice that ambiguity cuts both ways, and it is worth resolving in advance by asking the Vice President’s office, in writing, what role your advisor may take. Remember the two-day notification requirement applies to anyone other than the principal parties.

Academic standing — and the appeal that does not exist

Probation follows when “your cumulative grade point average is lower than 1.75 and the total number of credit hours attempted at L&C plus any transfer hours accepted by L&C is less than 16; or … your cumulative grade point average is lower than 2.00 and the total number of credit hours attempted … is 16 or more.” On probation the load is capped at fourteen credit hours in fall and spring, and seven in summer.

Suspension follows when, while on probation, the cumulative GPA stays below 2.00, twenty-four or more hours have been attempted, and the semester GPA drops below 2.00.

Here is the part that catches people: Lewis and Clark publishes no appeal from academic suspension. Not a short deadline — no appeal procedure at all. What it publishes instead is a condition: “Students on academic suspension are required to develop a Student Success plan with an advisor … If you are suspended in the fall semester you cannot register for the spring semester if you do not develop a Student Success plan with your advisor.” The route back is therefore compliance rather than challenge, and the practical work is making sure the plan is developed and documented on time, and that any disability, accommodation or medical circumstance that explains the record is on file in writing before anyone assesses it.

Financial aid is a separate system with separate consequences: the SAP standards are a 2.0 cumulative GPA, a 67% completion rate and a 150% maximum timeframe. The published appeal method is a letter to the Financial Aid Committee — “typed or handwritten and should be no longer than one page” — with no published deadline and no published decision deadline. A one-page cap means every sentence has to work.

Nursing, dental and paramedicine: a second rulebook you have to ask for

The handbook states plainly that the college-wide code is not the whole story: “In addition, many College programs (i.e. Nursing) require program participants to comply with a program-specific Code of Conduct, in addition to the College-wide Student Conduct Code.”

Lewis and Clark holds accreditation from ACEN in nursing, from the American Dental Association’s Commission on Dental Accreditation, and from CAAHEP in paramedicine, and it operates a dental clinic on campus. But the text of those program-specific codes is not published on the public site — no nursing handbook, no allied-health progression or dismissal policy. For a student in one of those programs, that is the single most important document in the case, and it is not one you can download. Request it in writing from the program director, keep the request, and note the date: if a program later relies on a rule you were never given, when you asked for it matters.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading Lewis and Clark’s policy against what the school actually did and finding the gap; writing the response or the appeal so it argues the grounds the policy recognizes rather than the ones that feel most unfair; preserving the federal issues — Title IX, Section 504 and the ADA, FERPA — so they are in the record if the case ever leaves campus; and identifying comparators, because a sanction far outside what similar cases drew is one of the few arguments that reliably moves a decision-maker.

At Lewis and Clark the useful early steps follow from what is missing. Ask, in writing, what standard of proof will be applied and what role your advisor may take, because neither is published. If you are in a health program, ask for the program-specific code the handbook refers to but does not post. And on the academic side, recognize early that there is no suspension appeal to win — the leverage is in the Student Success plan, in the accuracy of the grades themselves, and in any accommodation that was requested and never provided.

What a lawyer cannot do is turn a campus hearing into a trial. The rules of evidence do not apply, there is no discovery, and the school decides its own case at first instance. That is exactly why the written record built during the campus process is the whole ballgame: by the time a court looks at it, the record is closed.

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 Lewis and Clark’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.

What to do first

1. Find the deadline and write it down. Every deadline on this page came from Lewis and Clark’s own published document, and the unit matters as much as the number — business days, school days and calendar days produce very different dates from the same starting point. If the notice you were sent gives a different date from the policy, work to whichever is shorter.
2. Download the version of the policy that governed your cohort, not the one on the website today. Schools revise handbooks between catalog years, and the operative document is the one in force when the conduct happened. Save a PDF with the date visible.
3. Ask, in writing, for the evidence. Request the investigation file, the report, the exhibits and the names of anyone who decided. Put the request in email so the date exists.
4. Write nothing to the school about the merits until you know the process. A statement made to be helpful in a meeting becomes the record a court reviews later.
5. Say if you have a disability or requested an accommodation. If accommodations were requested and not provided, or a condition explains the performance, that is a Section 504 and ADA question that belongs in the record now, not on appeal.

One honest caveat about geography. Illinois has three federal districts. I am admitted to two of them: the Northern District, which takes Chicago and the northern counties, and the Southern District. 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. 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 Illinois schools

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 Illinois schools:

• Shawnee Community College
• SIU School of Medicine — Dismissal & Appeals
• UIC School of Law
• Carle Illinois College of Medicine
• Chicago-Kent College of Law
• Frontier Community College

Common questions about Lewis and Clark student cases

Where are the actual rules? The Conduct Code page has no procedure.

That is correct, and not an oversight on your part. The public Student Conduct Code page lists what is prohibited but sets out no deadlines, no standard of proof and no hearing procedure. All of that lives in the Student Grievance Procedure inside the student handbook, which covers academic matters, administrative matters, Conduct Code discipline and discrimination through the same steps.

How long is a “school day”?

Lewis and Clark runs its whole grievance clock in school days — ten to file or appeal at each level, five for the Vice President’s decision after a hearing, ten to appeal to the President. A school day is a day the college holds classes, so the calendar stretches over breaks and between terms in a way business days would not. Count them against the academic calendar rather than assuming, and file early.

Can I bring an advisor or a lawyer?

The Grievance Procedure contemplates “advisors and assistants that either party wishes to bring,” which is broad and contains no restriction on who they may be. What the college does not publish is what the advisor may do in the room — there is no speaking rule either way. Ask the Vice President’s office in writing beforehand, and remember that anyone other than the principal parties must be notified two days before the hearing.

How do I appeal an academic suspension at Lewis and Clark?

There is no published appeal. The college publishes a requirement instead: students on academic suspension must develop a Student Success plan with an advisor, and a student suspended in the fall cannot register for spring without one. So the work is in completing and documenting that plan on time, and in getting any medical circumstance, disability or unprovided accommodation into the record in writing before the next assessment point.

I am in the nursing program and cannot find its dismissal policy.

It is not published. The handbook confirms that programs such as nursing have their own program-specific code in addition to the college-wide one, but the text is not posted on the public site. Request it in writing from the program director and keep a copy of the request. If a decision later turns on a rule that was never made available to you, the date you asked for it becomes a relevant fact.