Union Adventist University Student Defense Lawyer

Students reach me about Union Adventist University at three points: when the dean of students and the director of Campus Safety ask for a written account of an incident, when the Behavioral Intervention Team sets a meeting, and, usually too late, after a letter of withdrawal or dismissal has already been sent. Each runs on a short clock, and each is decided on a record built early.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Union Adventist University?

Union Adventist University, known as Union College until it took its current name in spring 2024, is a private nonprofit owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. It is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim and no state hearing right. The theory is contract: the student handbook, the undergraduate bulletin and the program policies are the promise. Alongside it sit the federal statutes reaching private recipients of federal funds — Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 and the ADA — and accreditor rules. See breach of contract.

Nebraska’s one student-discipline statute does not reach here. Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 85-601 to 85-605 requires a public hearing and a written order containing findings of fact entered within thirty days, but § 85-605 defines the covered governing body as the Board of Regents or the Community College Board of Governors, and the statute is confined to force, threat of force and seizure of property. Nebraska sets no minimum procedural rights beyond that, so the handbook supplies the process.

Armstrong v. Clarkson College, 297 Neb. 595, 901 N.W.2d 1 (2017), is the case that matters, and its practical headline is exhaustion. The Nebraska Supreme Court held that a student’s relationship with a private college can rest on an implied-in-fact contract whose terms come from handbooks and policy manuals, and that academic deference is a standard of review rather than an affirmative defense, because not every decision by an academic institution is entitled to deference. But it also held that where an institution provides a mandatory grievance procedure, the enforceability of your contract rights is conditioned on your exercising it. At Union Adventist that means the three-day appeal and then the seven-working-day grievance. Miss either and the claim is gone.

Where do Union Adventist University cases come from?

Union Adventist enrolls roughly 729 students on a residential campus in Lincoln. Its heaviest programs are health and service professions: nursing, accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education; physician assistant studies, accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant; occupational therapy assistant; and international rescue and relief. The bulletin treats the professional phases of those programs as a separate category, which tells you they are separately sequenced.

That produces two distinct kinds of case. In the professional programs the risk is progression and professionalism: a clinical evaluation, a placement problem, a fitness concern, a term out of a cohort that is really a year out. See professionalism findings.

The other kind is particular to a denominational campus. Worship attendance is part of undergraduate citizenship standing, and the handbook says failure to meet the requirement is treated as any other violation of the code of conduct: a letter of warning after one semester, citizenship probation after two, and critical citizenship probation after three, which the handbook calls the last step before dismissal. Because that ladder is cumulative, a student already on citizenship probation for something unrelated carries it into the next conduct matter.

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

Union Adventist runs conduct, academic integrity, academic standing and Title IX on four tracks with four decision-makers. Conduct goes to the Behavioral Intervention Team. Academic integrity runs under the Academic Integrity Policy, with appeal to the vice president for Academic Administration and then the President, and serious violations may be noted on the official transcript. Academic standing moves through Academic Alert, Probation, Suspension and Dismissal, with appeals to that same vice president and a Probation and Suspension Committee. Title IX runs on its own policy.

Two features are easy to miss. The handbook says the university does not permit a student with a pending conduct matter to withdraw until it is resolved, so leaving is not an exit. And a suspension or dismissal for academic reasons is not the same conversation as one for conduct, even when the underlying facts overlap. Match your letter to the right track: academic misconduct, conduct code charges, Title IX, or academic dismissal and suspension.

What should you do first?

Download the student handbook and the undergraduate bulletin in the versions in force on your incident date and save dated copies. The handbook is published as a Google document, which is how the school publishes it, not an error, but it means the text can change without a version number, so a dated copy is the only reliable record of what the rule said when it applied to you. Read the appeal paragraph before the list of prohibited conduct.

Then be careful about the first interview. The handbook says the dean of students and the director of Campus Safety will meet with you and ask for your account of events verbally and in writing, before the BIT meets. That written account becomes the record. Ask in writing what is alleged and which section of the code is at issue before you give it, and ask whether you may bring the advocate the handbook says you will be offered. Preserve messages, photographs and timestamps. If a disability or an accommodation denial sits behind the conduct or the grades, raise it on its own track; see 504 and ADA accommodations.

What does Union Adventist University’s own policy actually say?

The handbook is specific about process and quiet about burden. This list says which is which.

• Conduct office: the Union Adventist University student handbook gives conduct to the Behavioral Intervention Team, made up of the Dean of Students, a residential dean, Student Success staff, the director of Campus Safety, and faculty and staff representatives. For graduate and professional students the program director is invited.
• Governing policy: the Student Code of Conduct in that handbook, which the university describes as a summary rather than an exhaustive list, and which reserves the right to suspend or administratively withdraw a student whose conduct is deemed an affront to the university.
• Academic integrity: a separate route in the undergraduate bulletin. Violations range from incidental to significant to egregious, consequences run from remediation to a failing grade to dismissal from the course and expulsion, and appeal goes to the vice president for Academic Administration and then the President.
• Appeal window: three business days from communication of the BIT decision, on three grounds — the process was not followed, unfair treatment, or new information. You request the appeals form from the vice president of Student Life. The appeals committee is chaired by that officer or a designee and is composed of staff and faculty who are not on the BIT.
• Grievance: if the BIT and the appeals committee both go against you, a formal written complaint to the President within seven working days requesting a grievance hearing. The Grievance Committee is selected by the President and is two students plus three faculty or staff; either party may suggest one member. Its recommendation goes to the President, whose decision is final action by the university.
• Standard of proof: the handbook publishes none for ordinary conduct. No campus-specific standard of proof located for the BIT track. The discrimination and harassment policy is the exception: it states that the university acts on a preponderance of the evidence gathered. Ask in writing which standard the BIT will apply.
• Advisor: for conduct, the handbook says you will be offered an advocate and may confirm or contest which BIT members sit on your case, but does not say who may serve or whether the advocate may speak. For the grievance, it is explicit: one advisor may accompany you, that advisor must be a parent, spouse, student or university employee, the presence of legal counsel is not appropriate for either side, and the advocate may speak only when recognized by the chair and may not attend deliberations.
• Sanctions: letter of warning, citizenship probation, critical citizenship probation, letter of suspension, letter of withdrawal and letter of dismissal. Students who withdraw under counsel or are dismissed for disciplinary reasons are not considered for readmission for a period set by the BIT, or may not be considered at all.
• Academic standing: published in the undergraduate bulletin. A cumulative grade point average below 2.00 means academic probation, with a fifteen-hour cap and a Student Success Contract. Consecutive probation semesters below 2.00 bring suspension, as can a single term below 1.00. Appeals go to the vice president for Academic Administration and the Probation and Suspension Committee. Readmission after academic suspension generally requires twelve semester hours elsewhere at a B minus average, and academic dismissal is final.
• Title IX and equal opportunity: the vice president of Student Life serves as Title IX Coordinator and Sexual Harassment Compliance Officer.
• Disability accommodations: the director of Disability Information and Access.

One provision deserves separate attention. The handbook reserves the university’s constitutional and statutory rights as a religious institution and states that, under 34 C.F.R. § 106.12, it claims exemption from the Title IX provisions at 34 C.F.R. §§ 106.21, 106.31, 106.39, 106.40, 106.51 and 106.57. That does not make the campus Title IX process disappear, and the university publishes a full one. It does mean a Title IX theory has to be checked against the claimed exemptions before it is relied on.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Union Adventist University — 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. A contract claim under Armstrong is a state-law claim. Few of these matters reach 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

Here the handbook keeps counsel out of the grievance room, so the work is done on paper and in advance: the written account you give before the BIT meets, the three-ground appeal, and the seven-working-day grievance that Armstrong requires you to complete. Where a decision is final, see appeals and court review.

Other Nebraska universities

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 universities:

• University of Nebraska at Kearney
• University of Nebraska Omaha
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• York University
• Bellevue University
• Concordia University Nebraska

Common questions about Union Adventist University student cases

How long do I have to appeal a Behavioral Intervention Team decision?

Three business days from the day the Behavioral Intervention Team’s decision is communicated to you. You contact the vice president of Student Life to request an appeals form, and the appeal must rest on one of three grounds: the process was not followed, you were treated unfairly, or you have new information. The appeals committee is chaired by the vice president of Student Life or a designee and its members are different from the BIT. It reports its findings to you and to the BIT.

Can I bring a lawyer into Union Adventist University’s grievance process?

No. The handbook says one advisor may accompany you at your request, that the advisor must be a parent, spouse, student or university employee, and that the presence of legal counsel is not appropriate for either side. The advisor is there for moral support and may speak when recognized by the chair. The Title IX policy is the exception: there an advisor of your choosing may attend any meeting and ask relevant questions of the other party and witnesses at a live hearing.

Does Title IX apply in full at Union Adventist University?

Not in full. The handbook states that the university reserves its rights as a religious institution and, under 34 C.F.R. § 106.12, claims exemption from the Title IX provisions at 34 C.F.R. §§ 106.21, 106.31, 106.39, 106.40, 106.51 and 106.57. It still publishes a Title IX policy with a live hearing and an advisor who may question witnesses. Before building a case on Title IX here, read the claimed exemptions against the specific conduct at issue.

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.