Saint Xavier University: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Saint Xavier?

Saint Xavier is a private Catholic university in Chicago, in Cook County, founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1846. It reports 3,286 students, is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, and its BSN and MSN programs carry CCNE accreditation. The rule to understand first concerns cheating: the catalog provides no hearing before an integrity penalty. The faculty member or administrator who finds a violation may impose penalties “appropriate to their purview,” from a reprimand up to suspension or expulsion, and the published way to contest one is a Course Grade Grievance.

Saint Xavier 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 Saint Xavier University is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois — Cook 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 Saint Xavier 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.

Academic integrity: the person who finds it decides it

The Academic Integrity policy in the 2026–2027 Academic Catalog covers cheating, unauthorized collaboration and plagiarism, which “may include: using AI generated content, which is never allowed, unless explicitly stated, and must be properly cited” — a sentence that reads two ways, so get the syllabus. For a penalty that touches your grade or standing, you must be emailed a written report with “a description and evidence of the misconduct,” the sanction and notice of your grievance right, and a second report at any point can prompt further discipline. The Code of Student Conduct expressly does not apply.

Students who believe they were “wrongly accused and penalized” use the Course Grade Grievance, a process built for grading errors. You raise it with the instructor within the first 20 business days of the following term, then file with the dean’s office within 20 business days after that, for review by a mediator and then a three-member faculty committee. Miss any deadline and “the grievance shall be considered denied.” The policy states no standard of proof.

Conduct and sexual misconduct hearings

Under the 2026–2027 Student Handbook an advisor may be a “friend, parent, professor, attorney or anyone else,” but is “not permitted to be an active participant.” At a University Conduct Board hearing the university’s counsel attends “only if students have outside counsel as an advisor,” and advisors may not “address the Board, examine witnesses or otherwise directly participate.” Witness names are due 24 hours before. The Board decides by majority on a preponderance of the evidence. Appeals go to the Vice President for Student Life “within five (5) business days of the date on which the Letter of Notification is sent,” and missing that window “waives the right to request an appeal.” Recognized grounds include new evidence, procedural error, a disproportionate sanction, a misapplied preponderance standard, and hardship.

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. Saint Xavier’s Interim Sexual Misconduct and Harassment Policy, last reviewed in August 2026, follows that model: an advisor may be an attorney but may not speak for you except during cross-examination, and a Request for Appeal must reach the Title IX Coordinator “within five (5) business days of the delivery of the Notice of Outcome.”

Academic dismissal: the deadline is in your letter

Records below a 2.0 cumulative GPA are reviewed after every fall, spring and summer term. A student on academic probation must reach 2.0 within the next term and may carry no more than 12 credit hours. Dismissal is noted on the transcript. The appeal goes to the dismissal committee “during the period specified in the dismissal letter” and must include an academic plan; if granted, you continue on strict probation. Separately, an Academic Status Grievance to the provost’s office must “clearly indicate a substantive reason,” and “the decision is final.” Neither step has a published number of days.

Nursing: one F, one repeat, and an unfitness clause

The 2026–2027 BSN Supplemental Handbook dismisses a student who earns an F in any nursing course, fails to raise the nursing GPA to 2.3 after one semester of probation, or fails a repeated course — and “only one nursing course may be repeated.” The School of Nursing may also dismiss where “personal integrity, clinical judgment, or conduct demonstrates unfitness,” and that dismissal “may, but need not, be preceded by remediation.” Because an integrity penalty can be a failing course grade, a professor’s cheating finding can become a nursing dismissal. Readmission is “rare”: requests go to the Director of Nursing by April 1 for fall or November 1 for spring, and the decision is final. MSN students are dismissed for a D or F, or a second C.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet: reading Saint Xavier’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 here. In an integrity case, test the written report against the policy, which requires the evidence and notice of your grievance rights, and frame the grievance inside its narrow eligibility (syllabus criteria not followed, or not applied consistently), because the mediator can mark anything else “Ineligible.” In a conduct case, decide the attorney question deliberately: an outside lawyer at the Board brings the university’s counsel into the room. 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 Saint Xavier’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 notice arrives: five business days for a conduct or sexual misconduct appeal, 20 business days for the first grievance step, and the period your dismissal letter names.
2. Save the 2026–2027 handbook, catalog pages and BSN Supplemental Handbook as dated PDFs.
3. If you were penalized for cheating, get the written report and the syllabus’s AI statement before you file anything.
4. Write nothing about the merits until you know which process applies.
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 Saint Xavier

Saint Xavier University students and families took on $15.4 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — including $2.5 million borrowed by 168 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, Saint Xavier 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:

• School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership
• Taylor Business Institute
• Telshe Yeshiva Chicago
• Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago
• University of Chicago

Common questions about Saint Xavier student cases

How do I appeal a cheating penalty at Saint Xavier?

Through the Course Grade Grievance. Raise it with the instructor within the first 20 business days of the following term, then file with the dean’s office within 20 business days of that step; a mediator and then a faculty committee review it. Missing any deadline means the grievance is “considered denied.”

Can I bring a lawyer to a Saint Xavier conduct hearing?

Yes, as an advisor: the handbook lists an attorney among the people who may accompany you. But advisors may not address the Board or examine witnesses, and if you bring outside counsel, the university’s counsel attends too. In a sexual misconduct hearing your advisor may conduct cross-examination but otherwise may not speak for you.

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

Five business days from the date the Letter of Notification is sent, on the Request for Appeal Form; filing late waives the appeal. Sexual misconduct appeals are also due within five business days, counted from delivery of the Notice of Outcome. Dismissal appeals follow the period stated in your letter.

What happens if I fail a nursing course at Saint Xavier?

An F in any nursing course means dismissal from the BSN program. A D or W lets you repeat, but only one nursing course may ever be repeated, and failing the repeat ends the program. Readmission is “rare,” with April 1 and November 1 deadlines, and the committee’s decision is final.

Is using AI allowed at Saint Xavier?

Only if your course says so. The catalog lists “using AI generated content, which is never allowed, unless explicitly stated, and must be properly cited” as plagiarism. Read your syllabus and assignment instructions closely, keep your drafts, and ask the instructor in writing when the rule is unclear.