Tennessee State University Student Defense Lawyer
Tennessee State University students generally reach me after a letter from the Office of Student Conduct and Judicial Affairs, or after a graduate program has raised an academic honesty problem where the stated consequence is dismissal from both the program and the university. TSU is a public, historically Black land-grant institution in Nashville with a large health sciences footprint, and that mix produces two very different kinds of cases: undergraduate conduct matters that run through the Code of Student Conduct, and graduate and health-professions matters where the academic decision is the whole case. The response that fits one does not fit the other.
Overview
TSU is public, so the Fourteenth Amendment applies to its disciplinary process. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), requires notice of the charge and an opportunity to be heard before a disciplinary suspension, and the amount of process owed rises with the severity of the separation. That is a floor. The university’s own published rules ordinarily promise more, and a school can be held to its own procedures — which is frequently a stronger argument than the constitutional one.
Academic judgments are treated with much greater deference. 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), direct courts to respect genuine academic evaluation reached through careful faculty deliberation. That is why the label matters. A dismissal that is actually a sanction for alleged dishonesty is not the same thing as a faculty judgment about competence, and treating it as though it were gives the school the benefit of a doctrine it did not earn.
Tennessee layers its own structure on top. Public universities here publish student disciplinary rules as state administrative rules, and matters carrying suspension or expulsion exposure are routed into contested-case procedures under the Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act unless the student waives them in writing and elects a campus hearing. Whether an attorney may actively participate is one of the things that changes with that election.
Where TSU cases come from
TSU’s academic integrity policy at the graduate level is blunt: a student who submits plagiarized work to satisfy an academic requirement is subject to dismissal from the program and from the university. That is a policy written to permit the harshest available outcome, and it means graduate students facing a plagiarism allegation are not facing a grade dispute — they are facing the end of the degree unless the allegation is answered on the record.
The other recurring sources are undergraduate conduct matters under the Code of Student Conduct, including alcohol, residence hall, and student organization allegations; Title IX complaints; and the health sciences programs. TSU’s health sciences offerings are among the largest in the state, and its nursing school runs progression and professionalism review that can end a clinical placement independently of anything the conduct office does. Accommodation failures also surface here in a predictable pattern: a student who was approved for accommodations but did not receive them in a clinical or lab setting only learns the consequence after failing something.
Which process you are in matters
Conduct charges, academic integrity allegations, Title IX complaints, and academic progression decisions run on separate tracks with separate offices and clocks. The track controls the deadline, the decision-maker, and how much process you get. Identify yours before you respond: student conduct defense, academic misconduct and honor code, academic dismissal and suspension, nursing school dismissal, or disability accommodations under Section 504 and the ADA.
What to do first
Pull the current Code of Student Conduct and, if you are a graduate or health sciences student, your program’s academic integrity and progression policies directly from TSU’s own site rather than relying on a summary, including this one. The graduate handbook and the university code can say different things about the same conduct, and knowing which one is being applied to you is the starting point.
Then calendar the deadline in writing, request your file, and preserve drafts, version history, submission records, clinical evaluations, accommodation correspondence, and messages before they are purged. Do not sit for an interview or submit a statement until you understand what the school claims to have. Statements made early, without the file, tend to become the strongest evidence against the student.
What I can help with
- Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
- Helping you prepare your account, your documents, and your questions
- Testing whether TSU followed its own published procedures
- Scrutinizing software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
- Assisting with the written response and appeal, to the extent the policy permits
- Serving as your advisor where the process allows it
- Negotiating sanction terms, notations, and disclosure language
What a lawyer may actually do in your case depends on that school’s policy. Some processes allow counsel to participate, some allow an advisor who may not speak, and some allow no outside person at all. Reading the current rule is the first step, and it determines what form the assistance takes.
Common questions
I am a graduate student accused of plagiarism. Is dismissal really on the table?
Under TSU’s published graduate academic integrity language, yes — dismissal from the program and the university is an available outcome for submitting plagiarized work. That does not mean it is the inevitable outcome, but it does mean the response should be built as though the maximum sanction is being considered, because the policy says it is.
I had approved accommodations that were never implemented. Does that help?
It can, and it is frequently the strongest available argument, but only if it is documented. What matters is the approval, the notice the program received, what was actually provided, and when you raised the gap. Reconstructing that record after a failing grade is much harder than preserving it now.
How quickly do I need to act?
Quickly. Response and appeal windows are usually measured in days, and in Tennessee the window to elect a hearing track can be shorter than the window to answer the charge. A flat-fee record review is described on the fees and scope of services page.
Related Tennessee pages: Vanderbilt University, Meharry Medical College, Middle Tennessee State, and Belmont University. The full list is on the Tennessee student defense index.
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.
This page is informational and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the institution named on it.
Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is admitted in Florida and its federal courts, not in Tennessee; Tennessee matters are handled through the framework described on the nationwide practice page — federal-law assessment, campus-process support where the school’s policy permits an advisor, and association with local counsel or pro hac vice admission where required.