Herzing University Student Defense Lawyer

Students at Herzing University call at one of three moments: when an instructor reports an academic integrity violation, when the university opens a conduct matter, and, usually too late, after a dismissal notification for failing satisfactory academic progress. The three share a shape. The deadlines are short, the conduct code is hard to get hold of, and the written record that decides the case is built early.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Herzing University?

Herzing is a private nonprofit university, having converted from for-profit status in 2015. On the question that decides these cases both answers point the same way: a private university is not a state actor, so there is no Fourteenth Amendment claim against it. 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), set the floor at public campuses and do not reach Herzing. What reaches Herzing is contract, the federal civil rights statutes, and its accreditor’s requirements.

The contract is the catalog and the handbook. The promise the university makes about how it will decide your case is the promise you can hold it to, which is why the exact wording of the current policy is the whole game. Alongside that sit Title IX, Title VI, and Section 504 and the ADA, which apply to a private university on the same terms as a public one because they follow the federal money rather than state action. Nothing in Wisconsin’s administrative code helps. Chapters UWS 14 and UWS 17, the Board of Regents rules that give UW students a hearing right, a clear and convincing standard for suspension and expulsion, and an advisor who may be a lawyer and may speak, apply only to the UW universities and their branches. “Institution” is defined at UWS 17.02(10) as “any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board.” Herzing is not one.

Be honest about what Wisconsin law does not settle here. No published Wisconsin appellate decision sets out how a private university’s handbook is enforced as a contract in a student discipline case. The review machinery students read about, ch. 227 review and common-law certiorari under Ottman v. Town of Primrose, 2011 WI 18, ¶35, runs against public bodies. Against Herzing the state-law theory is an ordinary breach of contract claim, and its strength depends on how specific the university’s written promises are.

Where do Herzing University cases come from?

Herzing enrolls roughly 6,187 students institution-wide. That is not a Wisconsin number: the university operates campuses in several states and online, is headquartered in Milwaukee, and has Wisconsin campuses at Brookfield, Kenosha and Madison. Your campus decides which dean handles the file.

The caseload follows the programs. Herzing’s satisfactory academic progress standards are written in both credits and clock hours, the signature of programs that end in a license or a certification rather than a transfer. If you are in a nursing or health-sciences program, the discipline file is not the whole exposure: a clinical site can decline you, and a licensing board can ask about it years later.

Those programs are also sequenced. A course runs on a fixed rotation, prerequisites run in order, and clinical placements are assigned by cohort, so a one-term separation is almost never one term. That is why the sanction is usually more negotiable, and more important, than the finding. A student who cannot win on the facts can still be arguing about whether the outcome is a failing assignment, a failing course or a separation, and about what the record says when a future program or employer asks.

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

Read the letter for its label first. The label picks the deadline, the decision-maker and your protections. An instructor’s report of cheating or plagiarism starts an academic integrity matter. A behavior report starts a conduct matter under the university’s own code. A sexual harassment or sexual misconduct allegation goes to a separate Title IX grievance procedure. Failure to meet satisfactory academic progress produces a dismissal notification and a satisfactory academic progress appeal, which at Herzing is the same appeal that decides whether you stay enrolled at all.

That last point is the one students miss. At many schools an aid appeal and an academic dismissal are separate fights. Herzing’s published standards run them together: a student who fails to meet the standards after a warning semester “is dismissed from the University and is ineligible to receive federal financial aid unless he or she successfully appeals.” One written appeal carries both. Treat it accordingly.

What should you do first?

Get the current policy in writing, because you will not find it on the open web. Herzing’s catalog and handbook sit behind a portal, so ask the dean of students’ office for the complete current conduct code and academic integrity policy, and for the version in force on the date of your incident. You will be measured against that version. Then collect the documents that fix the standard you were given: the syllabus, the assignment instructions, the rubric, the clinical or lab policy, and the proctoring rules.

Put the deadline in writing. Herzing’s dismissal notification is what carries your appeal deadline, so read it for the date before you read it for the reasons, state the date back to the school by email, and keep the reply. Ask in writing for the file: the report, the evidence, and who decides. Preserve draft and version history, learning management system timestamps, submission receipts, group chats and clinical evaluations. Do not sit for an interview until you know what is alleged.

What does Herzing University’s own policy actually say?

What follows is what the university publishes at a public address. Where nothing is published, this page says so rather than guessing. Confirm each item against the version in force when your matter starts.

• Conduct office: no public URL located. Herzing does not publish its student conduct code at a public, fetchable address; the catalog is delivered through a portal. Request the code in writing from the dean of students’ office and keep the response, because a link a student cannot open is not adequate published notice.
• Governing policy: the Herzing University catalog and student handbook, read as a contract. There is no system-wide code above it, and Wis. Admin. Code chs. UWS 14 and UWS 17 do not apply to a private university.
• Academic integrity: no separate academic misconduct procedure is published at a public address. Ask for it in writing, with the sanction range for a first finding.
• Appeal window: for a satisfactory academic progress dismissal, the university states that the appeal must be filed “prior to the deadline stated in the dismissal notification,” so the date in your own letter is the deadline. No campus-specific day-count located, and none is located for conduct appeals either.
• Standard of proof: no campus-specific standard of proof located. Wisconsin’s clear and convincing requirement for suspension and expulsion, in UWS 14.08(3)(e) and UWS 17.12(4)(f), does not reach a private university, so nothing supplies a standard except the university’s own code.
• Advisor: no campus-specific advisor rule located. Nothing published says whether an advisor is permitted, whether the advisor may be a lawyer, or whether the advisor may speak, and UWS 17.12(4)(b), which answers all three at a UW campus, does not govern here. Ask in writing before any meeting.
• Academic standing: satisfactory academic progress. Undergraduates need a 2.0 program grade point average and graduate students 3.00. Pace requirements rise with credits earned, from 25 percent in the first band to 66.67 percent thereafter, with 66.67 percent for certificate and diploma programs, and the maximum timeframe is 150 percent of required credits or clock hours. A student who misses is placed on academic warning for one semester, keeps federal aid without appealing, and is dismissed if the standards are still not met. A successful appeal produces academic probation and an academic success plan. The appeal must be in writing and explain the circumstance and how it was overcome; the campus academic dean chairs the committee, the decision issues within two business days, and the university states that all decisions on academic appeals are final.

The gap cuts both ways. A university that cannot show you the rule it is enforcing has a harder time enforcing it, and the request itself, made in writing and kept, builds the record. Ask for the code, the procedure and the sanction range in one email, and ask which version applies to your date.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

A federal claim arising at Herzing University — Title IX, Title VI, or Section 504 and the ADA — is filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which covers Milwaukee and the eastern counties. I am admitted to the bar of the Western District of Wisconsin and handle Eastern District matters together with counsel admitted there. Because Herzing is a private university and not a state actor, there is no Fourteenth Amendment due process claim, and the contract claim built on the catalog and the handbook is a state-law claim.

• 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 actually do turns on the university’s own policy, which at Herzing has to be obtained before anything else can be assessed. Some tracks allow an advisor who may be an attorney, some a silent advisor, and some exclude outside people entirely. Getting the current text and reading it against your letter is the first thing I do in a Full Read + Game Plan. Other campuses in the state are covered on the Wisconsin student defense page.

The federal money on the line at Herzing

Herzing University students took on $156.7 million in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year — 9,173 undergraduates with subsidized loans and 3,975 graduate students borrowing $68.6 million unsubsidized.

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. For health-professional students the timing rules bite hardest: remediation terms, leaves, and repeated courses all feed the federal pace-of-completion math. 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, Herzing’s most recent published composite score is 1.9 (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). University-wide federal Direct Loan totals.

Other Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin universities:

• Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University
• Lakeland University
• Lawrence University
• Maranatha Baptist University
• Marian University
• Marquette University

Common questions about Herzing University student cases

Do Wisconsin’s UWS rules give me a lawyer at a Herzing hearing?

No. Chapters UWS 14 and UWS 17 are Board of Regents rules, and UWS 17.02(10) defines “institution” as “any university, or an organizational equivalent designated by the board,” meaning the UW universities and their branches. Herzing is a private nonprofit university, so the UW rule that lets an advisor who may be a lawyer speak for a student facing suspension or expulsion does not apply to you. What governs is Herzing’s own catalog and handbook. Ask in writing whether an advisor is allowed and what that advisor may do.

Where is Herzing’s student conduct code published?

No public, fetchable address for it could be verified. The catalog is delivered through a portal, so the conduct code is not something you can pull up and read. Do not rely on a summary or an old screenshot. Ask the dean of students’ office in writing for the complete current code and the version in force on the date of your incident, and keep the response. A policy a student cannot reach is not adequate published notice, and that gap is itself worth raising if the university later relies on a rule you were never shown.

How does a Herzing academic dismissal appeal work?

Herzing publishes the standards and the route. Undergraduates need a 2.0 program grade point average and graduate students 3.00, pace requirements rise from 25 percent to 66.67 percent as credits accumulate, and the maximum timeframe is 150 percent. A student who still misses after a warning semester is dismissed and loses federal aid unless the appeal succeeds. The appeal must be in writing and explain the circumstance and how it was overcome, and the campus academic dean chairs the committee, which decides within two business days.

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 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 Wisconsin and does not advise on Wisconsin state law.