School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at SAIC?

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is a private professional college of the visual and related arts in downtown Chicago, Cook County. It is part of the Art Institute of Chicago, a private non-profit corporation, has been accredited by the Higher Learning Commission since 1936, and has separately accredited or approved programs in architecture, art therapy and counseling, and art education. Its conduct rules contain the feature that matters most for a student: an SAIC conduct decision can be appealed only on new information that was not available at the meeting and “would substantially change the outcome” — not for procedural error, not for bias — and the appeal goes to the same Vice President who has final say over the decision.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 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 the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 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 SAIC 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.

Conduct: one decision-maker, one ground of appeal

SAIC calls its Student Conduct Procedures “educational, rather than legal, procedures.” After a report, the Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs (VPSA) may resolve the matter informally or convene a Student Conduct Meeting: an Administrative Conduct Meeting with one or two staff members, or a Conduct Board Meeting with representatives of the administration, faculty and students — which the VPSA may let proceed without one of the three groups. The Notice of Alleged Misconduct generally comes at least five business days ahead; your written response is due on the date in the Notice, “typically at least forty-eight (48) hours in advance.” Students may not record any meeting. The standard is preponderance of the evidence, and a board only recommends: “The VPSA shall have final discretion as to the determination of responsibility and any sanctions.”

The appeal is due “within five business (5) days after receiving notice of the decision,” in writing, to the VPSA, and “appeals are only permitted to proceed if the written notice of the appeal indicates that there is new information that was not available at the time of the Student Conduct Meeting that would substantially change the outcome.” The VPSA decides it. An argument that the meeting was unfair therefore has nowhere to go afterward; it must be made before and during the meeting, in writing. A suspension may appear on the transcript for up to two years after it ends; an expulsion is recorded permanently. An interim suspension or other Campus Restriction can be appealed to the VPSA “within five (5) days” — the policy does not say whether these are calendar or business days — and may stay in place meanwhile. SAIC also reserves the right to apply its Rules of Conduct to misconduct that occurred before a student was admitted.

Advisors: anyone, if named in time

Each party may bring one advisor to any conduct meeting, and a lawyer may serve, because the advisor “may be a student, a member of the faculty or staff, or an individual from outside SAIC.” The advisor “may not present information or question staff members”; you present your own case. The trap is notice: you must tell the staff member in writing the advisor’s occupation, contact information and relationships, and “an advisor may not be permitted to attend a meeting if this notification is not provided at least two business days before the meeting.” More on conduct code defense is on its own page.

Academic misconduct is the instructor’s call

For a single act of plagiarism or cheating that does not involve falsified records, there is no board and no hearing. The faculty member reviews the work, offers to meet, and “will use their professional judgment to determine whether an act of academic misconduct has occurred,” then may warn you, require resubmission, or fail the assignment or the course. AI is addressed head-on: “Submitting content developed with the assistance of AI without receiving permission from the instructor to do so may constitute a violation,” so the syllabus and any permission you received are the first documents in an AI-use accusation. To contest a finding you meet the department chair — a meeting that “must be scheduled within ten days” of the associate dean’s notice, a period the policy does not label calendar or business days — and then appeal in writing to the academic associate dean “within ten business days after meeting with the department chair.” That decision is final. Repeat findings and falsified records can also go into the conduct process, where suspension and expulsion are available.

Credit, No Credit and the two-thirds rule

SAIC grades Credit (CR) or No Credit (NCR), and undergraduate standing turns on one ratio: credit in at least two-thirds of the hours attempted each fall and spring. Falling short moves a student from good standing to warning, then probation, then academic suspension, and failing every credit in a term skips a level. A first-year required course not passed “by their third attempt” also means suspension. A suspended student sits out the next fall or spring and the interim terms, and must earn credit in every hour attempted in the first semester back — a withdrawal or a single NCR that semester means dismissal, as does a second suspension, and dismissal permanently ends eligibility for an SAIC degree. Graduate students go on probation after any NCR and are dismissed after another NCR on probation, or after missing a second scheduled critique.

The appeal deadline counts backward, not forward. A suspension appeal to the Academic Review Board, and a dismissal appeal to what the policy calls the “Academic Review Committee,” must be “received by the Registrar at least 30 days prior to the first day of classes of the following fall or spring semester.” The Board’s general rule allows a year from the date of the concern; the 30-day rule is the one that decides the next semester, so work to it. Exceptions require “extenuating and / or compelling circumstances,” and reconsideration is limited to new information, within 10 business days of the decision.

Sexual misconduct and involuntary withdrawal

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). SAIC’s Title IX Policy Prohibiting Sex Discrimination, effective February 4, 2025, follows it: the 2020 regulation requires postsecondary institutions to hold a live hearing at which each party’s advisor conducts cross-examination, and SAIC’s policy provides one. Advisors are otherwise silent — they may not “speak for their advisee, make objections, present arguments” — and there is “no requirement that the advisor be an attorney,” though one may serve. The question is whether it is “more likely than not” that the respondent violated the policy. Unlike a conduct appeal, a Title IX appeal, due “within five (5) business days after receiving notice of the determination,” may rest on procedural irregularity, new information, conflict of interest or bias, or a disproportionate sanction.

The Involuntary Withdrawal Policy runs separately. In extraordinary circumstances the dean of student life may suspend a student on an interim basis, may require a mental or physical health evaluation by a provider SAIC chooses, and decides; the appeal is due “within five (5) days of their receipt of the decision” — again with no unit. That is forced medical withdrawal territory, where Section 504 and the ADA do real work.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading SAIC’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.

Two moves are specific to SAIC. Because the only conduct appeal is new information, the case is won or lost in the written response due before the meeting: every procedural objection, witness and document belongs there, because no later stage exists to raise them. And if you want a lawyer beside you as a silent advisor, the written notice must reach the staff member at least two business days ahead, or the meeting may go on without one.

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 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 SAIC’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.

In ordinary conduct matters SAIC’s rule is already broad — an advisor from outside the School is allowed — but the advisor stays silent, and the two-business-day notice applies.

What to do first

1. Find the deadline and write it down. Five business days for a conduct or Title IX appeal; ten business days after the chair meeting for an academic misconduct appeal; for a suspension or dismissal, 30 days before the first day of next semester’s classes.
2. Name your advisor in writing at least two business days before any meeting, with occupation, contact details and relationships.
3. Write the response as if there will be no appeal, because in most conduct cases there will not be one.
4. Ask, in writing, for the evidence — the report, statements and anything the board or VPSA will review.
5. Say if you have a disability or asked for an accommodation. SAIC has a dispute process for accommodation decisions, and an unmet accommodation that explains NCR grades belongs in the record now. For how Illinois cases work generally, see 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.

The federal money on the line at SAIC

School of the Art Institute of Chicago students and families took on $35.1 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — including $20.1 million borrowed by 482 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, School of the Art Institute of Chicago’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:

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

Common questions about SAIC student cases

Can I appeal an SAIC conduct decision?

Only on one ground. The Student Conduct Procedures allow a written appeal to the Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs “within five business (5) days after receiving notice of the decision,” and it proceeds only if it shows new information, unavailable at the Student Conduct Meeting, that would substantially change the outcome. Procedural error and bias are not grounds. The same Vice President decides the appeal and may keep the sanction in effect meanwhile.

Can I bring a lawyer to an SAIC conduct meeting?

Yes. A lawyer may serve as your one advisor, since the advisor may be “an individual from outside SAIC,” but the advisor “may not present information or question staff members” — you present your own case. Give the staff member written notice of the advisor’s occupation, contact information and relationships at least two business days before the meeting, or the advisor may be refused. In a Title IX hearing, your advisor conducts the cross-examination.

What standard of proof does SAIC use?

Preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not — in conduct and Title IX cases. Academic misconduct is different: a single first offense is decided by the faculty member’s “professional judgment,” with no stated standard and no hearing. You can contest it with the department chair and then appeal in writing to the academic associate dean within ten business days of that meeting.

How do I appeal an academic suspension at SAIC?

To the Academic Review Board, in writing, received by the Registrar at least 30 days before the first day of classes of the next fall or spring semester — a deadline that counts backward from the start of classes. You must show extenuating circumstances, and a meeting with Academic Advising beforehand is recommended. Back from suspension, a withdrawal or a single NCR in that first semester means dismissal, and so does a second suspension.

Can SAIC fail me for using AI?

It can find a violation. The policy says submitting AI-assisted content “without receiving permission from the instructor to do so may constitute a violation,” and for a first offense the instructor alone decides, using professional judgment, and may fail the assignment or the course. Keep your drafts, file history and any permission you received, meet the department chair, and appeal within ten business days of that meeting if needed.