Ricketts Great Books College Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Ricketts Great Books College at three points: when an instructor questions whether submitted work is the student’s own, when the Provost opens a conduct matter after something said in a live seminar, and after a term below a 2.0 turns into suspension. Each carries a ten business day clock, and each is decided on a record built in the first week.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Ricketts Great Books College?

Ricketts Great Books College is a private institution, operated by The Great Books College LLC and authorized to operate as a postsecondary institution in Nebraska. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim and no constitutional right to a hearing. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), 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) are public-campus cases. The theory here is contract, with the handbook and the published academic policies supplying the terms, plus Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 with the ADA.

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 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.” Enforcing what the college wrote down is a breach of contract claim.

The practical headline in Armstrong 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. Every ten business day window below is the condition precedent to having a case at all. Nebraska statutes add nothing: the state’s one disciplinary scheme, Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 85-601 to 85-605, binds only the Board of Regents and the Community College Board of Governors under § 85-605, and a private college is neither.

Where do Ricketts Great Books College cases come from?

This is a very new and very small institution, and both facts matter to a student in trouble. It first appears in the 2024 federal directory of institutions, with six students, so its classification is provisional and this page does not describe it beyond what the college itself publishes. It is a distance-learning Great Books college run from an office in Omaha, teaching through live video seminars and awarding an Associate of Liberal Arts of 60 credits and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts of 120 credits.

Because the college is new, its rules are moving. The handbook records an original effective date of 12 February 2025 and four revisions since, the most recent in August 2026. Which edition governed your incident is a live question, not a formality, and it is the first thing to pin down in writing.

Because the college is small, the same people appear at every stage. The Dean of Faculty decides an academic integrity case and then sits on the two-person panel that hears the appeal from it. The Provost is the nondiscrimination coordinator, the officer who receives a formal complaint, the named appeal officer for grievances, and one of the two people who decide an expulsion. That is not an accusation of bad faith; it is a structural fact to plan around by putting everything in writing and asking early who decides. Add the other two realities of a school this size — credits transfer only where another institution chooses to take them, and a dismissal usually ends the credential rather than delaying it — and the sanction is often more negotiable, and more important, than the finding.

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

The label on the letter picks the decision-maker, the clock and the protections, and here the tracks are genuinely separate. Academic integrity runs to the Dean of Faculty under the honor code. Non-academic conduct runs under the Progressive Discipline Policy through warning, probation, suspension and expulsion, with expulsion reserved to the Provost or the chief executive. Academic standing is a calculation involving no finding of wrongdoing. A grade dispute is a fourth route with a longer clock. Answering in the wrong track spends your only response.

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

What should you do first?

Calendar the deadline before you write a word of substance. Almost everything here runs on five business days to respond and ten business days to appeal. Then ask the Provost in writing for the handbook edition in force on your incident date, and for the name of the person who will decide, and keep the reply.

Then collect the evidence. Because teaching is by live seminar and coursework runs through a learning management system, the record is unusually good: session recordings, chat logs the handbook says are archived, submission timestamps, drafts and version history. Get them before anything rotates, and get the syllabus, because the AI rule is set assignment by assignment there rather than centrally. If the accusation rests on an AI-detection score, read the page on AI accusations first. Do not sit for a meeting before you know what is alleged.

What does Ricketts Great Books College’s own policy actually say?

This college publishes more procedural detail than most institutions its size. The list below is what it actually says, with the gaps marked as gaps.

• Conduct office: the Provost, under the Ricketts Great Books College Student Handbook, which also names the Provost as nondiscrimination coordinator and as the officer receiving formal complaints. Expulsion is decided at the highest level of administration, often the Provost or the chief executive.
• Governing policy: the Student Handbook, carrying the Student Code of Conduct, the honor code and the Progressive Discipline Policy of warning, probation, suspension and expulsion. No Nebraska system code applies: the University of Nebraska Board of Regents code and the Nebraska State College System policies govern their own campuses, not this one.
• Academic integrity: in the handbook and the academic policies, with sanctions graded from a warning through a zero on the assignment, a failing course grade, and suspension or expulsion, plus degree revocation where dishonesty is found after conferral. You are told the allegation and the evidence and may respond in writing, normally within five business days.
• Appeal window: ten business days, repeatedly. An integrity decision is appealable within 10 business days on grounds of procedural error, new evidence or a disproportionate sanction, with a written decision in 10 business days. An academic suspension or dismissal is appealable within 10 business days, decided jointly by an independent faculty reviewer and the Dean of Faculty. A grievance decision is appealable within 10 business days to an officer not involved in it. A grade appeal is different: 15 business days to the Dean of Faculty, then 10 to the Provost, whose decision is final.
• Standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence for academic integrity, stated as whether it is more likely than not that the alleged misconduct occurred. No standard is published for non-academic conduct cases; no campus-specific standard of proof located for that track.
• Advisor: the handbook says a student may have an advisor or support person at any hearing or meeting, especially in sensitive cases, but calls that person usually an observer who gives moral support rather than an active participant. It does not say whether the advisor may be a lawyer or may speak. No campus-specific rule on attorney advisors located.
• Academic standing: in the academic policies. Good standing is a cumulative 2.0 with on-pace progress; a term or cumulative average below 2.0 brings academic warning; continued deficiency, or a single term below 1.5, brings probation under a written academic plan; suspension is typically one term with a petition to return; dismissal is permanent. Progress standards are the 2.0 average, 67 per cent of attempted credits completed, and no more than 150 per cent of program length.
• Title IX and equal opportunity: the Provost is the nondiscrimination coordinator, and the handbook states that the college takes no federal student aid, is not subject to Title IX, and voluntarily adopts Title IX-comparable protections.
• Interim measures: the handbook allows immediate removal from a class or platform, plus no-contact orders and restricted access while a matter is investigated. See interim suspension.

One consequence of the college’s funding position is worth stating plainly. Because it says it is not a Title IV institution, a progress failure here carries no federal aid consequence and there is no aid appeal to file. The progress rule is an enrollment rule, so the academic appeal is the whole of it.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Ricketts Great Books College — 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. No pro hac vice motion and no sponsoring local attorney is needed. There is no Fourteenth Amendment claim, because a private college is not a state actor, and the contract claim under Armstrong is a state-law claim. The college also says it is not subject to Title IX, so do not assume the federal route is open. Very few of these matters end in court. What decides them is the campus record:

• 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

Testing whether the college followed its own procedure is unusually productive here, because the handbook commits to specific days, a named standard of proof and a named decision-maker, and Armstrong makes written commitments enforceable terms. Whether a lawyer may sit with you is a question the handbook does not answer, so ask it in writing first. Where a decision is final, see 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:

• Summit Christian College
• Universal College of Healing Arts
• Bryan College of Health Sciences
• Clarkson College
• College of Saint Mary
• Hastings College

Common questions about Ricketts Great Books College student cases

What standard of proof does Ricketts use in an academic integrity case?

Preponderance of the evidence, and the handbook says so expressly. The Dean of Faculty reviews the evidence and determines the sanction applying the preponderance standard, described as whether it is more likely than not that the alleged misconduct occurred. You are told the allegation and the evidence in writing and may respond in writing, normally within five business days. That is a real and useful commitment, because a published standard is something the college can be held to under Nebraska contract law.

Can I bring a lawyer to a meeting at Ricketts Great Books College?

The handbook allows an advisor or support person at any hearing or meeting, especially in sensitive cases, but describes that person as usually an observer who gives moral support rather than an active participant. It does not say whether the advisor may be a lawyer, and it does not say whether the advisor may speak. No campus-specific rule on attorney advisors located. Ask the Provost in writing before the meeting, name the person you intend to bring, and keep the answer.

Does Title IX apply at Ricketts Great Books College?

The handbook says the college does not participate in federal student aid programs and is not subject to Title IX, and that it voluntarily adopts Title IX-comparable protections, with the Provost serving as its nondiscrimination coordinator in the institution’s initial years. It says the same about FERPA. Take that seriously in both directions: the internal protections are real published commitments, but the federal enforcement route students rely on elsewhere may not be available, which throws the weight onto the contract claim.

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.