Lewis University: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Lewis?

Lewis is a private Catholic university in Romeoville, in Will County, sponsored by the De La Salle Christian Brothers. It reports about 6,500 undergraduate and graduate students, is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, and its nursing degrees carry CCNE accreditation. One catalog rule matters before your next assignment: unless a syllabus or assignment says otherwise, “work generated via AI and submitted as the student’s own will be considered plagiarism” — and the policy lists “the use of artificial intelligence or other technology” as evidence of a Level 3 violation, the tier that must go to a hearing board.

Lewis University is a private institution. There is no state action, so there is no constitutional due process claim, and arguing one wastes an appeal. The theory is contract: Illinois holds that a college and its students have a contractual relationship whose terms come from the catalog and the handbook — Raethz v. Aurora University, 346 Ill. App. 3d 728 (2004), restated by the Fourth District in Urso v. Bradley University, 2023 IL App (4th) 230165 — while adding that the relationship “is unique and cannot be strictly categorized or characterized in purely contractual terms.”

The limit is the standard of review, and it decides most of these cases before anyone reaches the facts. A student has a remedy for an adverse academic decision only if it was made arbitrarily, capriciously, or in bad faith. Frederick v. Northwestern University Dental School, 247 Ill. App. 3d 464 (1993), puts it bluntly — courts have been loath to review, much less overturn, academic dismissals — and Bosch v. NorthShore University Health System, 2019 IL App (1st) 190070, holds that a school which departs somewhat from its handbook still wins unless the departure was material. The federal courts in Chicago apply the same test: in Doe v. Columbia College Chicago, 933 F.3d 849 (7th Cir. 2019), the Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a student’s contract claim where the college had investigated and reasoned its way to a decision, and in Gash v. Rosalind Franklin University, 117 F.4th 957 (7th Cir. 2024), it held that calling a process arbitrary or predetermined, without specific facts, is not enough. What survives is specific: in Liu v. Northwestern University, 78 F. Supp. 3d 839 (N.D. Ill. 2015), a former law student’s claim went forward where the school imposed what amounted to an integrity charge while denying her the handbook procedure for contesting one. Federal law does not care that the school is private: Title IX, Title VI and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act apply because it takes federal funds, and the ADA applies to it as a place of public accommodation.

A federal claim arising at Lewis University is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — Will County sits in its Eastern Division under 28 U.S.C. § 93(a), and the statute fixes the places of holding court for that division at Chicago and Wheaton. 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 or ADA complaint for a Lewis 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.

AI and plagiarism accusations: Level 3 means a hearing

The Academic Honesty section of the 2026–2027 Undergraduate Catalog sorts violations into three levels. Level 1 stays with the instructor; Level 2, which includes cheating, is reported to the Office of Academic Affairs. Level 3 covers deliberate plagiarism, collusion and repeated cheating, and “all instances of level 3 academic integrity violations will be referred to the Academic Honesty Judicial Board for a hearing,” which may add program dismissal, academic suspension or disciplinary dismissal. Because AI use is listed as Level 3 evidence, an AI accusation can go straight there.

You may bring a support person, but “they will not be entitled to participate (speak or provide documentation) in the hearing,” and the convener needs their name 24 hours before you appear. If you waive the hearing, a vice provost decides and the decision is final. The catalog publishes no standard of proof for these cases and no appeal deadline; the appeal runs to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs (graduate and SGPCE students: the Vice Provost of Graduate and Continuing Education) and then, by petition to the Provost, to an ad hoc committee that includes a faculty member you choose. Graduate students should ask which route applies: the Graduate Catalog describes a different one.

Conduct cases: no attorneys, three business days

The 2026–2027 Student Handbook asks whether it is “more likely than not” that you violated the Community Standards, at one of three levels, up to a Conduct Board Hearing. The attorney rule is blunt: “parents, guardians, mentors or attorneys are not allowed at any level of conduct proceedings, except as required in the Sexual Misconduct Policy.” A Board advisor must be a Lewis student, faculty or staff member and may not address the Board, and a missed hearing goes ahead without you. The Dean of Students may impose an interim suspension for an immediate threat, reviewable through the ordinary appeal. Appeals go one level up and must be filed “no more than three business days from the date of the outcome,” on narrow grounds: a procedural error that changed the outcome, a record on which “no reasonable person” could have found you responsible, or new evidence. “There is only one opportunity to appeal an outcome.”

Sexual misconduct: a virtual live hearing and a three-day appeal

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). The 2020 regulation requires postsecondary institutions to hold a live hearing at which each party’s advisor conducts cross-examination. Lewis’s handbook matches: hearings are virtual, from separate rooms; an advisor “may be an attorney” and “may question the parties and witnesses as permitted by the Hearing Officer(s).” The appeal is due “no later than 3 calendar days after the determination is sent.” The Dean of Students website still posts an older policy under which parties question witnesses themselves, so ask the Title IX Coordinator in writing to confirm which procedure governs.

Academic standing, and the nursing program’s one-F rule

Undergraduates go on probation below a 1.75 cumulative GPA (0–33 hours earned), 1.90 (34–50) or 2.00 (51 or more), for one semester, with a 12-to-14-hour cap; an Incomplete counts as failing probation. Falling short makes you subject to academic dismissal, appealed to the Dismissal and Appeals Committee “according to the instructions outlined in the letter of dismissal” — the deadline exists only in your letter — with the Provost’s final decision sent by certified mail.

Nursing is harsher. Pre-licensure students need a 2.75 GPA for Sophomore 2 courses, and “students who earn a grade of ‘F’ in any required nursing course at any level will be dismissed from the Nursing program”; two D or W grades do the same. The catalog allows an appeal “per the student handbook,” but I could not find the BSN Nursing Student Handbook on Lewis’s public website, so request it in writing. A nursing dismissal does not automatically end your enrollment at Lewis.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading Lewis’s policy against what was actually done; writing the response or appeal on the grounds the policy recognizes; preserving Title IX, Section 504, ADA and FERPA issues so they are in the record if the case leaves campus; and finding comparators, because a sanction far outside what similar cases drew is one of the few arguments that moves a decision-maker.

Two moves are specific to Lewis. In an AI case the level is the whole fight: ask in writing what evidence placed the matter at Level 3 and whether the syllabus carried its own AI statement, and assemble drafts and version history — your support person cannot speak, so your written statement carries the case. In conduct cases, where attorneys are barred from the room, the lawyer’s work is the written appeal, drafted to the three recognized grounds before the window opens. The limit is real: there is no discovery, the rules of evidence do not apply, and the written record built now is the record a court would later review.

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’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. Diary the deadline the day the letter arrives: three business days for conduct, three calendar days for sexual misconduct, the date in your letter for dismissal.
2. Save the 2026–2027 handbook and catalog pages as dated PDFs; the version in force at the time governs.
3. In an AI or plagiarism matter, gather drafts, version history and notes, plus the course’s AI statement.
4. Ask by email for the documentation, so the request is dated.
5. Raise any disability or accommodation issue now, and read the Illinois student defense overview.

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.

The federal money on the line at Lewis

Lewis University students and families took on $29.3 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — including $5.9 million borrowed by 285 parents through Parent PLUS.

Every dollar of it rides on academic standing. A dismissal, a failed Satisfactory Academic Progress evaluation, or a mid-term withdrawal sets off federal rules that decide whether aid continues, whether money already disbursed has to go back, and — under the borrowing caps in effect since July 1, 2026 — whether a student who leaves can still finance a return. The academic fight and the financial aid fight are the same fight, and the windows are short. How those rules work: SAP appeals and academic dismissal.

On the Department’s financial responsibility test, Lewis University’s most recent published composite score is 3.0 (fiscal year 2022–23) — a passing score on the –1.0-to-3.0 scale, where 1.5 and above passes. How to read that number: the federal warning signs guide.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Data Center, Direct Loan volume by school, award year 2025–26 (cumulative through June 30, 2026). Institution-wide federal Direct Loan totals.

Other schools in the Northern District of Illinois

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other schools in the Northern District of Illinois:

• Lincoln College of Technology, Melrose Park
• Loyola University Chicago
• Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
• McCormick Theological Seminary
• Meadville Lombard Theological School
• Midwest College of Oriental Medicine (Skokie)

Common questions about Lewis student cases

How long do I have to appeal a conduct decision at Lewis?

Three business days from the date of the outcome; letters arrive by Lewis email, so check it daily. The appeal is heard one level above the original decision-maker, and you get only one. For a sexual misconduct determination the window is shorter: no later than 3 calendar days after the determination is sent.

Can I bring a lawyer to a Lewis conduct hearing?

Not to an ordinary conduct proceeding: attorneys “are not allowed at any level of conduct proceedings, except as required in the Sexual Misconduct Policy,” and a Board advisor must be a Lewis community member who may not address the Board. A lawyer can still prepare your statement and appeal. In a sexual misconduct case your advisor may be an attorney and may question witnesses.

Is using AI plagiarism at Lewis?

By default, yes. Unless a course syllabus or assignment says otherwise, AI-generated work submitted as your own “will be considered plagiarism.” The policy lists AI use as evidence of a Level 3 violation, and every Level 3 case goes to the Academic Honesty Judicial Board for a hearing, where sanctions reach program dismissal and suspension.

What standard of proof does Lewis use?

Conduct cases ask whether it is “more likely than not” that you violated the Community Standards. Sexual misconduct cases use preponderance of the evidence, with a presumption that the respondent is not responsible. The academic honesty policy publishes no standard of proof at all — a gap worth raising.

Can Lewis dismiss me from nursing for one failed course?

Yes. An F in any required nursing course at any level means dismissal from the Nursing program; two D or W grades do the same. Appeals run under the BSN Nursing Student Handbook, which I could not find posted publicly, so request it in writing.