The Chicago School (Chicago campus): Student Discipline, Dismissal & Federal Court

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at The Chicago School?

The Chicago School is a private, multi-campus university of psychology and related health professions; this page covers its Chicago campus at 400 South Jefferson Street, Cook County. It is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission, its Chicago Psy.D. programs in Clinical and School Psychology are accredited by the American Psychological Association, and its Illinois College of Osteopathic Medicine received pre-accreditation for the D.O. program in April 2025. One process, Student Community Standards, handles misconduct, academic integrity, professional behavior and failure to progress — and its rules for a dismissal case are stark: at the hearing “no attorneys may be present,” silence “will be considered an admission,” and the appeal is due in five business days and must be written by the student alone.

The Chicago School 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.

The Seventh Circuit has applied that same Illinois standard — arbitrary, capricious or bad faith — to a student’s contract claim against this school: DiPerna v. Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 893 F.3d 1001 (7th Cir. 2018).

A federal claim arising at The Chicago School 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 Chicago School 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.

One process for conduct, integrity, professionalism — and progress

Under the 2026–2027 Academic Catalog and Student Handbook, Student Community Standards (SCS) adjudicates referrals under the Code of Conduct, the academic-integrity policy and the Professional Behavior standards, and for failing to meet program expectations “including progress toward degree.” Your Academic Program Lead files the referral after telling you, and the Dean for Student Success picks the pathway. If the department wants only an Academic Development Plan, you get five business days from the date of the referral to answer in writing; if it wants a hearing or dismissal, there is a hearing.

An ADP is not discipline, so it “cannot be appealed,” the school may tell your training-site supervisors about it, and refusing one can bring a referral. AI use is set by each department, and any use not expressly allowed is unauthorized. While an SCS case or a Title IX case against you is open, including the appeal period, you are not in “University Good Standing” and your degree can be withheld; withdrawing does not end the case.

The hearing: no attorneys, no recording, and silence counts

The notice arrives by school email with a link to the referral materials. By its due date you must ask in writing for any accommodation, a postponement, the recusal of a biased faculty panelist, and your support person — one Chicago School faculty member or non-student staff member — and send your written response, which SCS “is not obligated to consider” if late. The hearing takes place within 30 business days of SCS’s evaluation of the referral, before three faculty members and a staff representative. You must attend, on webcam if online. “Since this procedure is institutional and not judicial, no attorneys may be present.” Nothing is recorded, and no new paper may be handed up once it starts. Then the sentence that decides most cases: a failure or refusal to respond to the allegations or the panel’s questions “will be considered an admission of the facts and matters contained in the referral.” The written outcome — no action, an ADP or dismissal — comes within 10 business days, and a dismissal is “typically effective immediately,” cutting off email and facilities. SCS publishes no standard of proof.

Five business days, in your own words

A dismissal may be appealed to the SCS Appeals Committee through an online form “within five business days of being notified of their dismissal,” on two grounds only: relevant new evidence that could not be provided at the hearing, with an explanation of why, or improper SCS procedure. The policy then adds: “no one, including legal counsel, may write or submit an appeal on behalf of the student.” The committee decides within 10 business days. A denial is final — “This decision may not be appealed” — and a grant leads to an appeal hearing on the granted ground within 10 business days.

Grades and progress: a petition, not an appeal

Graduate students must hold a 3.0 cumulative GPA and complete 66.67 percent of attempted credit hours. Falling short brings a warning period of one semester or two terms; still short after that, you must file a Reinstatement Petition “immediately following email notification” — no number of days is given — or be dismissed by the Add/Drop deadline. Your Academic Program Lead decides within 3 business days. Approval means probation under a SAP Plan, and breaking the plan means dismissal; denial means a dismissal noted permanently on the transcript. The complaint process cannot help: it excludes “decisions regarding a student’s academic status (including SAP).” See SAP appeals for how these petitions are built. A course grade may be appealed only where the published grading criteria were not followed, by Monday of Week 1 of the next term, and the program lead’s decision is final.

Students at the Illinois College of Osteopathic Medicine answer to an Academic Performance and Promotion Committee. A course failure, a COMLEX-USA failure or three Incomplete Due to Assessment grades bring Programmatic Academic Probation; further failures are counted, and the committee may require a repeated year or dismissal, within a six-year limit to graduate.

Sexual misconduct: a live hearing with cross-examination

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 school’s Title IX Policy, reissued effective January 9, 2025, follows that rule: the 2020 regulation requires postsecondary institutions to hold a live hearing at which each party’s advisor conducts cross-examination. Your advisor may be an attorney, but outside that questioning “the attorney is required to act in a supportive role and may not serve as an advocate or formally represent the party.” Decisions use a preponderance of the evidence, an appeal to a three-member panel is due “within five business days of the delivery of the Final Determination,” and a student facing charges cannot receive a degree meanwhile. More on Title IX hearings.

What a student defense lawyer can do here

Most of the value is early and quiet. It is reading the school’s policy against what it 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.

Here the work is front-loaded, because counsel cannot attend the hearing or write the appeal: reviewing the referral packet, preparing you to answer every allegation and question, and getting the written response to SCS on time. On appeal, a lawyer can explain the two permitted grounds and help you gather the record, but the words must be yours. An offered ADP deserves negotiation before you accept it, since it cannot be appealed.

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 The Chicago School’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 your clock. Five business days to answer a non-hearing referral, five to appeal an SCS dismissal or a Title IX determination; a SAP reinstatement petition is due “immediately”; a grade appeal by Monday of Week 1.
2. Save the 2026–2027 Academic Catalog and Student Handbook, effective August 24, 2026, your program’s published standards, and the referral materials linked in your notice.
3. Make your requests in writing by the notice’s due date: accommodations, postponement, recusal, and the name and title of your faculty or staff support person.
4. Answer everything. Your written response and your answers at the hearing should address each allegation in the referral; anything left unanswered can be treated as admitted.
5. Raise disability early. If a condition or an unmet accommodation explains what happened, it is a Section 504 and ADA question for the record now. For the wider picture, 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 The Chicago School

The Chicago School students and families, across all of its campuses, took on $180.7 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — with 2,411 graduate and professional students also borrowing through Grad 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, The Chicago School’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, all campuses.

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:

• Chicago State University
• Chicago Theological Seminary
• Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology
• Columbia College Chicago
• Concordia University Chicago
• DePaul University

Common questions about The Chicago School student cases

Can I bring a lawyer to my SCS hearing?

No. The catalog says the procedure is “institutional and not judicial,” so “no attorneys may be present,” and the same rule bars counsel from the formal student complaint process. You may bring one support person who is a faculty member or non-student staff member of the school. A lawyer can still prepare you and review the referral before the hearing.

How long do I have to appeal a dismissal at The Chicago School?

Five business days from being notified of the dismissal, through the online appeal form, and only for relevant new evidence that could not be provided at the hearing or improper SCS procedure. You must write and submit the appeal yourself. The Appeals Committee decides within 10 business days, and a denial is final.

What happens if I stay silent at my SCS hearing?

The catalog treats it as an admission: a failure or refusal to respond to the allegations or to the panel’s questions “will be considered an admission of the facts and matters contained in the referral.” If you are worried about a parallel criminal matter, get advice before the hearing rather than at it.

Can I appeal an Academic Development Plan?

No. ADPs “do not constitute disciplinary action” and “cannot be appealed,” and refusing to take part in one can lead to an SCS referral. Because the school may share your ADP with training-site supervisors, raise concerns about its terms while it is being drafted, in writing.

What standard of proof does The Chicago School use?

For Student Community Standards cases — conduct, academic integrity, professional behavior and academic progress referrals — the catalog publishes none, so ask in writing what standard the panel will apply. Title IX cases and complaints under the student anti-discrimination policy are decided by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not.