McHenry County College: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at McHenry County College?

McHenry County College is a public community college in Crystal Lake, in McHenry County, run by Community College District 528 and accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, with an ACEN-accredited nursing program and nearly 60,000 participants a year. Its discipline system has one defining feature: there is no hearing. Under the 2026–2027 Student Code of Conduct, the student conduct officer investigates, decides and sanctions — and the Code says that same officer “shall serve as advisor to all individuals and groups involved in the disciplinary process.” The Code states no standard of proof. A typed appeal, due in five business days, is the only review by anyone else.

McHenry County 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 McHenry County College is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — McHenry 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 McHenry County 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.

District 528 also serves Boone, Kane and Lake Counties; the division follows the county where a claim arises, and Kane and Lake sit in the Eastern Division.

One officer investigates, decides and advises

Under Article VIII, if the alleged conduct would violate the Code, the officer must notify you in writing “within five (5) business days after receiving the complaint,” describing the allegation, the process and your right to an advisor. If you do not take part, the officer proceeds “without input from the student.” The officer interviews witnesses and issues a written determination with findings and any sanction.

Article IV gives you written notice, “the right to know the nature of evidence against them,” the right to present information and witnesses, and “the right to appear with an advisor,” with no stated limit on who. The Code reaches conduct at “clinical sites.” And Board Policy 4.4.3 promises “fair procedures, including notice… an opportunity to respond to the allegations, and an appeal process” — a written commitment worth quoting back.

Five business days to appeal, on narrow grounds

The appeal goes to the Chief Student Affairs Officer through mccstudentaffairs@mchenry.edu “within five (5) business days after receipt of the student conduct officer’s final letter,” typed and stating its grounds. A suspension or expulsion may be appealed for procedural error, new evidence, or a sanction “excessive or otherwise disproportionate with the violation”; every other sanction only for procedural error or new evidence. The decision comes “within ten (10) days” — the Code does not say whether calendar or business days — and is final. Readmission after suspension can carry conditions, including ineligibility for “programs of study.” An interim suspension can be imposed “at any stage,” and the Code publishes no appeal from it.

Cheating, AI and grade appeals

A first instance of academic dishonesty is handled under the syllabus, and the Student Conduct Notice you receive “does not begin the student conduct process.” Repeat reports go to the conduct officer. The Code treats AI use as cheating “unless otherwise authorized by the course instructor,” so in an AI-use accusation the syllabus is the first document to get. A grade is challenged through the catalog’s change-of-grade appeal, started within 30 days of the last date of class (the section’s own note says calendar days). It “determines if the final grade was calculated appropriately,” and the final reviewer, reached within seven business days of the dean’s decision, “will review only material submitted in Step 2” — so all your evidence belongs in that step.

Nursing: three write-ups end the program

The 2026–2027 ADN Student Handbook, which governs nursing dismissals here, requires at least a C (75–83; “Final grades will not be rounded”) in theory and clinical. Section 15.7 allows immediate removal for “a single serious or repeated act of grossly unsafe, unethical, or inappropriate behavior,” with an F “regardless of theory grades.” Section 15.8 is blunter: three write-ups for unprofessional behavior and the student “will be dismissed from the program and will not be given an opportunity to return.” The appeal route is badly signposted — Section 9.0 points to “Section 21.0,” which is the employment section — and Section 17.0 sends clinical failures to the grade-change appeal. Readmission is by petition (May 15 for fall, December 15 for spring), with only “a procedural review” on appeal within 30 calendar days after the semester ends.

Sexual misconduct gets a 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). As the college’s own “Process A” procedure confirms, the 2020 regulation requires postsecondary institutions to hold a live hearing at which each party’s advisor conducts cross-examination; your advisor “may be a friend, mentor, family member, attorney.” Findings use a preponderance of the evidence; appeals are due “within 3 business days of the delivery of the Notice of Outcome.” Emergency removal brings a show-cause meeting, and “There is no appeal process for emergency removal decisions.”

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading the rules against what was done, appealing on the grounds the policy recognizes, preserving Title IX, Section 504, ADA and FERPA issues in the record, and finding comparators whose similar cases drew lighter sanctions.

Here two moves matter. With no hearing, the meeting and your written submission are the case: get the evidence in writing first, answer it point by point, and cite Board Policy 4.4.3. In nursing, answer every write-up in writing, because the third ends the program.

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 McHenry County 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.

At McHenry County College that means an advisor with no defined role in conduct cases, but advisor-led cross-examination in Process A sexual misconduct cases.

What to do first

1. Diary the deadline: five business days for a conduct appeal, three business days for a Title IX appeal, 30 calendar days from the last class for a grade appeal.
2. Request the evidence in writing before you meet the student conduct officer.
3. Collect the syllabus, the Code and your cohort’s ADN handbook, plus every write-up and Action Plan.
4. Type the appeal on the Code’s grounds and send it to mccstudentaffairs@mchenry.edu.
5. Raise disability now if a condition or a denied accommodation is part of the story.
6. Compare other colleges’ rules 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:

• Moraine Valley Community College
• Morton College
• Oakton College
• Olive-Harvey College (City Colleges of Chicago)
• Prairie State College
• Richard J. Daley College (City Colleges of Chicago)

Common questions about McHenry County College student cases

How long do I have to appeal a conduct decision at McHenry County College?

Five business days after you receive the student conduct officer’s final letter, typed and stating your grounds, to the Chief Student Affairs Officer; miss it and the decision is final. The ruling comes within ten days — the Code does not say calendar or business. Title IX appeals are due within three business days.

Does McHenry County College hold a hearing before suspending a student?

No. Under the Student Code of Conduct the student conduct officer investigates and issues a written determination, and the only further step is a written appeal. An interim suspension can come at any stage, with no published appeal. Only Title IX Process A cases get a live hearing.

What standard of proof does McHenry County College use?

The Student Code of Conduct states none: nothing in Article VIII says how sure the officer must be before finding a violation, a gap worth raising in an appeal. The Title IX procedure is explicit — findings rest on a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not.

Can I bring a lawyer to a McHenry County College conduct meeting?

The Code gives you “the right to appear with an advisor” without limiting who that is, so it does not exclude an attorney, and it is silent on what an advisor may say. In a Title IX Process A case an attorney may be your advisor and conducts the hearing questioning.

Can McHenry County College dismiss me from the nursing program for professionalism?

Yes. Three write-ups for unprofessional behavior mean dismissal with no opportunity to return, and a single serious unsafe or unethical act can end the course with an F regardless of theory grades. Appeals run through the grade-change procedure, so answer each write-up in writing when it is issued.