College of Saint Mary Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about College of Saint Mary at three points: when an instructor turns a coursework problem into an academic integrity referral, when a conduct charge arrives under the community behavioral standards, and after a program or university dismissal letter lands. In a health-professions program the clock on the last of those can be two business days, which is why people so often call a week late.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at College of Saint Mary?

College of Saint Mary is a private nonprofit institution. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim and no constitutional right to a hearing. The theory is contract, with the catalog and the program handbooks supplying the terms, alongside the federal statutes that reach private colleges taking federal money: Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 with the ADA. Enforcing the school’s written commitments is a breach of contract claim under Nebraska law.

Nebraska has a framework case, and it is the one to know. In Armstrong v. Clarkson College, 297 Neb. 595, 901 N.W.2d 1 (2017), the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the student-institution relationship can rest on an implied-in-fact contract whose terms come from handbooks and policy manuals, proved by the surrounding facts and circumstances, the conduct of the parties, or a general reasonableness standard, and generally a jury question. It also refused to treat academic deference as a shield: the argument is “not an affirmative defense,” but goes to the standard of review, and “not every decision by an academic institution is subject to deference.”

The practical headline in Armstrong, though, is exhaustion, and it is why most of these cases are lost before a lawyer sees them. Where a university provides a mandatory grievance procedure in a contract, the Court held, the enforceability of a party’s rights under that contract is conditioned on the exercise of that procedure, and the doctrine applies to private entities. Miss the internal appeal here and the claim is gone. Everything below about ten business days, two business days and thirty days is the condition precedent to having a case at all.

Nebraska statutes add nothing. Its one disciplinary scheme, Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 85-601 to 85-605, binds only the Board of Regents and the Community College Board of Governors by the definition in § 85-605, and a private college is neither. No Nebraska statute sets minimum procedural rights here. The catalog is the process.

Where do College of Saint Mary cases come from?

College of Saint Mary enrolls roughly 786 students in Omaha. It is a private nonprofit women’s college with large health-professions programs, and its catalog names nursing tracks including the PNC and BSN programs. That mix explains the caseload, because the serious outcomes cluster where a course sits inside a sequence with a clinical component.

The college says as much in its own rules. The general academic appeal deadline is ten business days, but for nursing students completing a course and progressing mid-semester into a course with a clinical component the catalog cuts it to two business days, expressly to prevent a delay in progression. In a cohort program the calendar is the sanction: a term out of sequence is usually a year out, and sometimes it is the end of the program. Those consequences are covered on the pages about nursing dismissal and professionalism findings.

The conduct side is organized unusually. Instead of a numbered list of offenses, Section 4 of the catalog groups prohibited behavior under the college’s core values: alcohol, drugs, weapons and residence life violations under Excellence; harm to persons, threats, bullying, hazing, relationship violence, stalking and sexual misconduct under Dignity; falsification, forgery, academic dishonesty and theft under Integrity. The catalog says these expectations apply to all students regardless of academic program or residency, so a commuting graduate student is covered on the same terms as a resident undergraduate.

Which process are you in, and why does that matter?

The label on the letter picks the committee, the clock and the form. Academic dishonesty appears in both places: it is listed under Integrity in the behavioral standards, which then say academic policies are outlined in the Academic Catalog, routing the substance to the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee. A pure conduct charge runs through the catalog’s conduct process and its sanctions. Sexual misconduct, harassment, relationship violence and stalking are pulled into a separate policy. A dismissal for grades is not a finding of wrongdoing.

Match the letter to the track before you write: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, Title IX, or academic dismissal and suspension.

What should you do first?

Find your deadline before you draft anything, because here the deadline is the case. If you are a nursing student mid-semester, assume two business days until someone tells you otherwise in writing. Then get the current program handbook, not just the catalog: the catalog says programs may set probation and dismissal standards more stringent than the university’s, and that you may be dismissed from a program while remaining eligible to enroll at the college.

Then work the sequence the catalog sets. An appeal of a course grade, program dismissal or other course decision goes to the instructor, then the Program Director, then the course Assistant Dean, and only then to a Student Academic Appeal Form. Skipping a step is the gap Armstrong turns into dismissal of the claim. Collect the syllabus, the rubric and any clinical evaluation, preserve drafts, version history and learning-management timestamps, and do not sit for a meeting before you know what is alleged.

What does College of Saint Mary’s own policy actually say?

The academic side is published in real detail, with day-counts you can rely on. The conduct side publishes the standards but keeps the procedure on other catalog pages. This list says which is which.

• Conduct office: not named on the published page. The standards are Section 4: Community Behavioral Standards, which says a student found to have committed or attempted any listed act may be subject to the sanctions in Section 7: Conduct Procedures, with Section 5 giving an overview of the process. Both sit elsewhere in the catalog.
• Governing policy: the College of Saint Mary Academic Catalog. Prohibited conduct is grouped under the college’s core values rather than numbered, and the expectations apply to all students regardless of academic program or residency. No Nebraska statute or regulation governs it.
• Academic integrity: listed under Integrity in Section 4, with the substance routed to the academic catalog. Academic appeals are decided by the Academic Integrity and Appeals Committee, the four academic assistant deans and the academic integrity coordinator, chaired by the Dean of Student Affairs.
• Appeal window: for a final course grade, program dismissal or other course or program decision, a petition no later than ten business days after the end of the course or the date of the decision. For nursing students completing a course and progressing mid-semester into a course with a clinical component, two business days after the decision notification; at the end of a semester those students get the standard ten. For dismissal from the university, the Student Academic Appeal Form goes in within thirty days of the dismissal notice. The committee holds a hearing at which both sides state their case and decides within five days after it. For the conduct track, no campus-specific day-count located; request Section 7 in writing.
• Standard of proof: the published standards page does not state one. No campus-specific standard of proof located; ask in writing which standard the decision-maker will apply, and keep the answer.
• Advisor: in an academic appeal the catalog says the student may have a navigator to help her through the process. It does not say whether the navigator may be a lawyer or may speak, and the standards page states no advisor rule for the conduct track. No campus-specific advisor rule located, and Nebraska has no right-to-counsel statute for campus discipline. Confirm in writing before any hearing.
• Academic standing: good standing requires a cumulative grade point average of 2.00 or better, and falling below it in a term or cumulatively means probation. Dismissal follows by classification: none for first-semester freshmen, probation only; below 1.75 cumulative for continuing freshmen and sophomores under sixty credits; below 2.00 for juniors, seniors and post-graduate students at sixty or more. Any student below 1.0 in a semester with credits attempted and completed is dismissed. Undergraduate dismissals are determined after spring semester. Readmission may be sought after one term, not counting summer, through the College Admissions Committee; a student dismissed twice is no longer eligible.
• Title IX and equal opportunity: sexual misconduct, harassment, relationship violence and stalking are routed out of Section 4 into the college’s separate Sexual Misconduct, Harassment, Relationship Violence and Stalking Policy. The standards page does not name the office administering it; ask for the office and coordinator by name in writing.

One point about access. What you can read online is the behavioral standards and the academic appeal deadlines. The conduct procedure that decides a conduct case, and the program handbook that may impose a stricter progression standard, are not. Request both in writing, in the editions in force on your incident date, and keep the responses. Under Armstrong the promises in those documents are the contract, so which edition applied to you has legal consequences.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at College of Saint Mary — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, where I am admitted to the bar. The college is private, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment theory and the contract claim is a state-law claim. In Nebraska more than most states, the internal appeal is the case:

• Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
• Preparing your account, your documents and your questions
• Testing whether the school followed its own published procedure
• Scrutinising software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
• Helping with the written response and the appeal, where policy allows
• Serving as your advisor where the process permits one
• Negotiating sanction terms, notations and disclosure language

What a lawyer can do in the room turns on procedures the college does not publish beside its standards. Some tracks allow an advisor who may be an attorney, some a silent support person, some none. Asking in writing beforehand is the only way to know. Once a decision is final the questions shift to the record and to whether every internal step was exhausted, covered under appeals and court review.

Other Nebraska 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 Nebraska colleges:

• Hastings College
• Little Priest Tribal College
• Nebraska Methodist College
• Ricketts Great Books College
• Summit Christian College
• Universal College of Healing Arts

Common questions about College of Saint Mary student cases

How long do I have to appeal an academic decision at College of Saint Mary?

It depends on the decision. A final course grade, program dismissal or other course or program decision must be petitioned no later than ten business days after the end of the course or the date of the decision. Nursing students completing a course and progressing mid-semester into a course with a clinical component get only two business days. Dismissal from the university is appealed on the Student Academic Appeal Form within thirty days of the dismissal notice, and the committee decides within five days after the hearing.

Do I have to use the internal appeal before suing College of Saint Mary?

Yes, and this is where these cases are usually lost. In Armstrong v. Clarkson College, 297 Neb. 595, 901 N.W.2d 1 (2017), the Nebraska Supreme Court held that where a university provides a mandatory grievance procedure in a contract, the enforceability of your rights under that contract is conditioned on your use of that procedure, and that the doctrine applies to private entities. Skip a step in the instructor, Program Director and Assistant Dean sequence, or miss the deadline, and the claim can be gone regardless of its merits.

Does Nebraska’s student discipline statute apply at College of Saint Mary?

No. Neb. Rev. Stat. sections 85-601 to 85-605 require a public hearing and a written order containing findings of fact entered within thirty days, but section 85-605 defines the governing body it binds as the Board of Regents or the Community College Board of Governors. A private nonprofit college is neither, and the scheme reaches only force, threat of force and seizure of institutional property in any case. At College of Saint Mary the catalog, not a statute, supplies whatever process you get.

This is general information about the matters I handle and the law that applies to them. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the law in this area can change. For advice on your matter, start with the Full Read + Game Plan — your entire file read, straight answers, and exactly what to do next, in what order. Other campuses are covered on the Nebraska student defense page.

This page is informational and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the institution named on it.

Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is licensed to practice law in Florida and is admitted to the bars of the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, and the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Federal court admission is not a license to practice the law of the state in which the court sits; he is not licensed in Nebraska and does not advise on Nebraska state law.