Shawnee Community College: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Shawnee?

Shawnee is a public community college of about 1,150 students at Ullin, in Pulaski County, serving Illinois Community College District 531 across the far southern tip of the state. Its conduct rules have an unusual structural feature that a student should understand before trying to work out a deadline: Shawnee runs every conduct deadline in “college working days,” a term it uses thirteen times and never once defines — while using “calendar days,” “school days” and “business days” elsewhere in the same handbook for other procedures.

Shawnee 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 Shawnee Community College is filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois — Pulaski 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 Shawnee 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.

Four different units, one undefined

Shawnee’s Board Policy Manual is written in the policy-governance style, which means it sets limits on the President rather than procedures for students. The nearest policy to student discipline, B3002 “Student Relationships,” is an Executive Limitations policy directing the President not to “permit students to be uninformed of student rights and responsibilities, including expectations for student behavior, and the consequences of failure to adhere to the expectations.” It contains no procedures, no deadlines and no numbered discipline code. The operative rules exist only in the Student Handbook. If you have been looking for a board policy number to cite, there is not one.

The handbook then uses four different day-units:

• Conduct appeal — five college working days. “Students and student organizations have the right to appeal decisions in all disciplinary cases. The appeal must be made in writing to the Vice President of Student Affairs within five college working days. A hearing must be held within ten college working days of receipt of the notice of appeal.”
• Expulsion or suspension — a further five college working days to the President and Board of Trustees. “The President must respond to the appeal within ten college working days. The Board of Trustees may or may not respond within thirty college working days.” Note that the Board’s own commitment is expressly optional.
• Interim suspension — ten calendar days. A student placed on interim suspension “shall be given a prompt notice of charges and a hearing before the Disciplinary Hearing Committee within ten calendar days after the imposition of the interim suspension.”
• Temporary class suspension — ten consecutive school days maximum; a classroom removal decision “under normal circumstances” within 48 hours.
• Title IX — business days. A determination is rendered “within 30 business days of the investigators’ receipt of the formal written complaint,” the report goes to panellists at least ten days before the hearing, and a “written request for appeal must be submitted to the Resolution Coordinator within five (5) business days.”

Because “college working days” is never defined, the only safe approach is to count it as the shortest plausible reading — days the college’s offices are open — and to file well inside it. It is also entirely reasonable to ask the Vice President of Student Affairs, in writing, to confirm the count for your specific deadline. If the college cannot say what its own unit means, that is worth having on record.

Two things the general conduct code does not contain

Shawnee’s Code of Conduct and its Disciplinary Procedures publish no standard of proof and no advisor rule. Neither appears anywhere in the Code of Conduct, the Disciplinary Procedures, the Hearing Committee provisions or the Appeals sections. There is no preponderance standard, no clear-and-convincing standard, no right to bring anyone, and no prohibition on doing so.

That is different from the Title IX process, where Shawnee is detailed. There the standard is preponderance — “when considering all the evidence in the case, the Decision-maker is persuaded that the allegations are more probably true than not true” — and there is a genuine advisor scheme: “the College shall maintain a pool of trained advisors who shall be available to the parties on a cost-free basis, or either party in a Title IX complaint may select an advisor of their choosing and at their expense.” The role is split: “Advisors may not speak on behalf of a complainant or respondent or testify during the course of a hearing; although, they may request suspension of any meeting, interview or hearing to provide consultation. In addition, advisors shall be allowed to cross-examine the other party and any witnesses during the hearing phase of these proceedings.” So in a Title IX case at Shawnee your advisor cannot make your argument, but must conduct your cross-examination.

In a general conduct case, where nothing is published, both questions are worth asking in advance and in writing: what standard will the committee apply, and may you bring an advisor. The answers belong in the record either way.

The plagiarism rule with an automatic F attached

Shawnee’s academic honesty policy runs progressive discipline across three reported offenses, tracked by the Vice President of Academic Affairs’ office. The first-offense provision contains the single sharpest deadline in the handbook, and it is one students lose cases to without ever seeing a hearing:

“The student shall be required to attend and complete the plagiarism remediation session led by the College Librarian, if applicable, within 10 calendar days of the reported offense. If the student chooses not to complete the remediation session within the 10-calendar day timeframe, the student shall automatically receive an “F” in the course.“

The failing grade is automatic and requires no further decision by anyone. On a second offense the same ten-calendar-day remediation rule applies and the student additionally receives a grade of zero for the assignment. Where academic dishonesty leads to suspension or expulsion, a failing grade comes “as a part of the disciplinary action.”

Two practical points follow. Ten calendar days is short, and the clock runs from the reported offense — not from a hearing, not from a finding, and not from the point at which you decide whether to contest anything. And completing the remediation is not the same as admitting the allegation; a student can protect the grade while still contesting the underlying finding through the disciplinary route. Shawnee publishes no separate academic-integrity appeal deadline, so that contest runs on the five-college-working-day disciplinary clock or through grade review.

Grade review, academic standing and the nursing rules

Grade review is the one area where Shawnee counts generously, in calendar days: the instructor must respond to the emailed request “within thirty (30) calendar days”; a Grade Review request is decided “within 30 calendar days of the receipt of the completed request”; an appeal to the Department Chair follows “fourteen (14) calendar days” after the Chair’s decision email; the Department Dean has “seven (7) calendar days” to respond; and an appeal to the Vice President of Academic Affairs runs “within fourteen (14) calendar days,” with the VPAA taking fourteen calendar days to decide.

Academic standing is thinly drawn: a student who does not maintain a 2.00 cumulative GPA is given academic warning for one semester, and “if work is unsatisfactory the following semester, the student will be placed on probation.” No appeal deadline is published for academic standing, and none for SAP — the handbook says only that financial aid appeals follow “the appeal process described as part of the Satisfactory Academic Progress Policies.”

Shawnee runs Associate Degree Nursing, Practical Nursing and Cosmetology under a Dean of Allied Health & Nursing, and the handbook confirms a second rulebook exists: the section headed “Nursing Program Rules, Regulations, and Guidelines” states that “these rules, regulations, and guidelines are in addition to the policies and regulations found in the Student Handbook and are honored and supported by the College policy.” The ADN page adds that “if a student fails any one 1st year course (except ADN 239), they may be eligible for the ADN Progression Program,” and that “students must pass ADN 239 to continue in the program.”

The full nursing and allied-health program handbook is not published on the public site — only the statement that it exists and controls alongside the Student Handbook. For a nursing student, that unpublished document is usually the one the decision actually turns on. Request it in writing and keep the request.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading Shawnee’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 Shawnee the most valuable early letter is a short one asking the college to state, in writing, three things it has not published: what a “college working day” means for your deadline, what standard of proof the committee will apply, and whether you may bring an advisor. Separately, if a plagiarism allegation has been reported, deal with the ten-calendar-day remediation session first — completing it protects the grade from an automatic F and does not concede the allegation — and only then decide how to contest the finding itself.

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 Shawnee’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 Shawnee’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:

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

Common questions about Shawnee student cases

What is a “college working day” at Shawnee?

Shawnee does not say. The handbook uses the term thirteen times to run every conduct deadline and never defines it, while separately using “calendar days,” “school days” and “business days” for other procedures. Count it as days the college’s offices are open, file well inside the window, and ask the Vice President of Student Affairs in writing to confirm the count for your deadline. If the college cannot state what its own unit means, that is useful to have in writing.

What standard of proof will Shawnee apply to my conduct case?

The general Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures publish none — no preponderance, no clear and convincing, nothing. The Title IX process does publish one: preponderance, described as the decision-maker being persuaded the allegations are “more probably true than not true.” In a general conduct matter, ask the committee in advance and in writing what standard it will use.

Can I bring an advisor to a Shawnee hearing?

In a Title IX matter, yes, and it is well specified: the college keeps a pool of trained advisors available free, or you may bring your own at your own expense. That advisor may not speak for you or testify, but “shall be allowed to cross-examine the other party and any witnesses.” In a general conduct matter the handbook is silent — no right and no prohibition — so ask in writing before the hearing.

I was reported for plagiarism. What do I need to do first?

Deal with the remediation session. Shawnee requires a first-offense student to attend and complete the plagiarism remediation session with the College Librarian within ten calendar days of the reported offense, and states that a student who does not “shall automatically receive an F in the course.” That failing grade is automatic. Completing the session protects the grade and is not the same as admitting the allegation, which you can still contest separately.

I am in the nursing program and cannot find its rules.

They are not published. The Student Handbook confirms that the nursing program has its own rules, regulations and guidelines that apply “in addition to” the handbook, but the full program handbook is not posted publicly. Request it in writing from the Dean of Allied Health & Nursing, keep the request, and note the date — if a decision later relies on a rule you were never given, when you asked becomes a relevant fact.