Southwestern Illinois College: Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at SWIC?

SWIC enrolled 9,033 students in autumn 2025, which makes it the largest community college in the Southern District of Illinois and the second-largest institution in the district after SIUE. It runs a substantial health-sciences division, and that is where most of its serious student cases come from — because SWIC does something unusual with clinical performance, and because its nursing program carries a two-strike rule that ends a career in the program without any published appeal.

Southwestern Illinois 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 Southwestern Illinois College is filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois — St. Clair 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 SWIC 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.

The deadlines, and the appeal that stops at the President

The Student Rights & Conduct Code is adopted under Board Policy 4018 (“Student Rights,” adopted October 1991, amended December 2010). Related numbered policies are 4006 (Academic Standards), 4014 (Financial Aid Program) and 4017 (Student Handbook and Catalog).

• Conduct appeal: seven school days. “If the student disagrees with the action taken, he or she may request an appeal within seven school days from the time the notification is received. The request must be in writing.” The clock runs from receipt, which is more generous than the codes that run from sending — but seven school days is still short.
• The college’s response: ten school days, “not including Holidays,” and “normally … unless circumstances require additional time for consideration.”
• Grievances: ten school days at each level of authority, with a ten-school-day response.
• Grade appeals: thirty calendar days, then ten school days. A student must contact the instructor “within 30 calendar days after the start of the regular semester (fall, spring or summer) following the recording of the disputed grade,” and if unsatisfied, the department chair or coordinator in writing “within the following 10 school days.” The thirty-day limit “may be waived by the chief academic officer when extraordinary circumstances are applicable” — so a missed grade-appeal deadline is not automatically fatal, but the waiver has to be asked for.

One ceiling matters and is stated flatly: “Grievances may not be appealed to the SWIC Board of Trustees.” The internal route ends inside the administration. SWIC does not publish a minimum notice period before a hearing.

Preponderance — and nothing at all about advisors

SWIC does publish its standard of proof, and it is preponderance of the evidence: a student accused of violating the Conduct Code is referred to the Chief Student Services Officer, “who will determine whether the student is guilty of the charge. If the student is found guilty using preponderance of the evidence, the Chief Student Services Officer will impose appropriate sanctions.”

What SWIC does not publish is any advisor rule whatsoever. The words advisor, attorney, counsel and representative do not appear anywhere in the Student Rights & Conduct Code, and no advisor provision appears in the disciplinary sections of the 2025–2026 catalog. There is no published right to bring anyone, and no published rule preventing it. If you intend to bring someone, ask the Chief Student Services Officer in writing in advance and keep the answer; do not arrive assuming either way.

Clinical performance as academic misconduct — SWIC’s distinctive rule

Most colleges treat clinical failures as an academic-progression matter. SWIC folds them into misconduct. Its list of academic misconduct reads: “academic misconduct including, but not limited to, cheating, plagiarism and forgery; failure or refusal to follow clinical practice standards.”

That single clause changes the analysis for a health-sciences student. A clinical incident at SWIC can be routed through the conduct code, on the seven-school-day appeal clock, rather than through an academic-progression process — and the consequences reach further than a grade. Faculty may sanction directly: “Sanctions for academic dishonesty include a failing grade on an individual assignment, examination or course. Serious matters of academic dishonesty or disruptive behavior may cause the student to be withdrawn from the instructor’s course or a program of study.” And the code adds a provision with real career consequences: “A student found to have violated the Student Conduct Code may be denied access to certain courses or programs, including the loss of internship privileges, needed to complete a program of study.”

So the first question in a SWIC clinical case is which track the college has actually put you on, because the deadline and the decision-maker depend on the answer. Ask, in writing, and early.

The nursing rules, which are stricter than the college’s

SWIC requires a Special Application for admission to Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Medical Laboratory Technology, Medical Surgical Technology, Nursing Education, Paramedic, Physical Therapist Assistant, Practical Nursing, Radiologic Technology and Respiratory Care. Each has its own planning guide, and the Associate Degree Nursing program publishes a full handbook with grading and progression rules of its own:

• “A ‘C’ or better in all theory/clinical courses is required. A ‘P’ is required for all lab courses.”
• “A failure on the final exam results in course failure, regardless of cumulative theory grade and lab/clinical grade and will be recorded as a ‘D’.” A student can pass every assessment across a semester and still fail the course on one examination.
• “A ‘D’ in any theory course OR ‘F’ in any lab course will require repetition of both the theory and lab components regardless of a passing grade in the other.”
• The two-strike rule: “Any student who fails two SWIC nursing courses is ineligible for return to the SWIC Nursing Education Program.” A transfer student arriving with two previous nursing failures elsewhere is allowed only one at SWIC.
• A five-year window: all nursing courses for the AAS must be completed within five years of first admission to the program.
• Withdrawing before midterm with a failing grade after two content tests yields a W on the transcript — but counts as a failure for readmission purposes.

The nursing handbook publishes no appeal deadline at all. Where the second failure is the one that ends eligibility, the work has to happen before it is recorded — in the accuracy of the grade, in whether accommodations were requested and provided, and in whether the program followed its own written procedure.

Health-program students should also know the background-check and drug-testing rules, which are unusually explicit. Convictions for assault, sexual offenses, murder, burglary, arson and robbery “normally prohibit the student from participation in the clinical portion of the program and will result in program dismissal.” A positive drug test or listing on a prohibitory government registry “will also result in dismissal from the program” — and the catalog states that “Medical marijuana, which is not FDA approved, is also considered a positive drug testing result.” Dismissal on any of those grounds “does not qualify students for refund of tuition or lab fees.” An Illinois medical-cannabis card is not a defense to that rule as written.

Academic standing, and the withdrawal power with no procedure

Board Policy 4006 sets satisfactory progress at a 2.0 grade-point average or higher. SWIC publishes Academic Warning and nothing beyond it: there is no published academic probation tier and no published academic suspension tier. What it publishes instead, in full, is this: “At any time, the college has the right to request at any time the withdrawal of any student who does not maintain the required academic standards or whose conduct is in violation of the Student Rights and Conduct policy.”

There is no published academic-dismissal appeal procedure and no deadline. The general grievance route — ten school days per level, ending short of the Board of Trustees — is the only published avenue.

Financial aid runs separately, and the catalog warns students expressly that the two systems differ: “Financial Aid applicants/recipients need to be aware that the Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress requirements differ from the institution’s academic standing policy.” The SAP standards are 2.0, 67% completion and 150% maximum timeframe, with a Timeframe Notice at 130% and Timeframe Suspension at 150%. The SAP appeal is a window rather than a countdown: submission opens on the first day of enrollment for the semester and closes on the last day of the semester — the last day of finals. The committee’s decision is final, and financial aid processing is held until it decides.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading SWIC’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 SWIC three things repay early attention. Establish in writing whether a clinical matter is being handled as misconduct or as academic progression, because SWIC’s code lets it be either and the clocks differ. Ask whether you may bring anyone to a hearing, since the code is silent and silence is not consent. And in a nursing case, treat the first course failure as the moment that matters — by the time a second is recorded, the handbook makes return to the program unavailable and publishes no appeal from that outcome.

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 SWIC’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 SWIC’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 colleges

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 colleges:

• Wabash Valley College
• John A. Logan College
• Kaskaskia College
• Lincoln Trail College
• Olney Central College
• Principia College

Common questions about SWIC student cases

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

Seven school days from the time you receive the notification, in writing. School days are days the college holds classes, so the count stretches across breaks. The college then responds “normally” within ten school days, not including holidays. Grievances run on ten-school-day steps — and they cannot be taken to the Board of Trustees, which SWIC states expressly.

Can I bring a lawyer or an advisor to a SWIC hearing?

SWIC does not say. The words advisor, attorney, counsel and representative appear nowhere in the Student Rights & Conduct Code or in the catalog’s disciplinary sections. There is no published right and no published prohibition. Ask the Chief Student Services Officer in writing before the hearing and keep the reply, so the position is documented whichever way it goes.

I failed a clinical rotation. Is that discipline or academics?

At SWIC it can be either, and that is unusual. The conduct code lists “failure or refusal to follow clinical practice standards” as academic misconduct, so a clinical matter can be routed through the disciplinary process on the seven-school-day appeal clock. Sanctions can include withdrawal from a program of study and denial of access to courses or internships needed to finish. Ask in writing which track you are on before responding.

I failed my second nursing course. Can I appeal?

The ADN handbook states that “any student who fails two SWIC nursing courses is ineligible for return to the SWIC Nursing Education Program,” and it publishes no appeal deadline or procedure for that outcome. Note also that a failed final exam produces course failure recorded as a D regardless of your other grades, and that a pre-midterm withdrawal with a failing grade after two content tests still counts as a failure for readmission. The realistic work is on the accuracy of the grade itself, on accommodations that were requested and not provided, and on whether the program followed its own written rules.

I have an Illinois medical cannabis card. Does that protect me in a health program?

Not under SWIC’s published rule. The catalog states that a positive drug test results in dismissal from the program and that “Medical marijuana, which is not FDA approved, is also considered a positive drug testing result.” Dismissal on that basis also carries no refund of tuition or lab fees. If this is your situation, get advice before a test rather than after — the published rule leaves very little room once a result exists.