Legal Question in Education Law in Louisiana

Possible student right violation or abuse

Hi

I am not sure if my case has any legal or civil basis. I attended Louisiana State University in Shreveport until March 14, 2007. A few days ago, I learned that I had been charged with academic misconduct based on an accusation that was made while I was still in school. I was not informed of any academic misconduct charges before I resigned. The charges were pressed against me after I left the university. I looked in the university's student handbook, and it does not state that a former student is subject to disciplinary action once he/she has left the school. However, I am being charged anyway. I was told by a university worker named Grace that if an incident happened while I was still a student, then the student conduct code still applied to me. I did not see that information in the university's student handbook either. I was told by the Dean of Students that the student handbook was the official guideline to go by concerning academic misconduct. I need some assistance or advice from you or anyone who is familiar with students' rights. If you do not have any available information for me, will you please tell me what organization or other attorney I can contact to help me? Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Asked on 4/02/07, 8:02 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Hardy Parkerson Retired Attorney; now Law Professor

Re: Possible student right violation or abuse

Dear LawGuru Friend,

Sorry about this unpleasant situation! Of course, a lot of your legal rights may depend on when you resigned from L.S.U., whether or not you were notified of the school's "finding" and given a chance to defend yourself against the charge or charges. I do not know that there is any such specific law that applies to this situtation, but "due process of law" requirements of the United States and Louisiana Constitutions, as a mimimum, should certainly, in my opinion, give you some right to be notified of the charge or charges against you and afforded some opportunity to defend yourself against such charge or charges and against such prejudicial finding and registration on your academic transcript. Of course, just my thought would be that if a student were so accused and immediately dropped out of school and got lost so that the school could not notify him of the proposed finding and recording of the negative finding on the student's transcript, then I suppose that the student may not have the right to come in a very long time later and assert his rights to be notified of the proposed action/finding and to present a defense to same. However, since what happened to you was done only within the last few days, you should contact the school and ask for a hearing on the the alleged charge of academic misconduct. You certainly have some legal rights that you have not been afforded, at least as I see it; and you should take action promptly to assert your rights and do whatever you can to have this negative notation taken off of your official college transcript. There is more to it all than this, but this is something to think about. Good luck! If I can answyer any more questions, feel free to e-mail me! My e-mail address is [email protected]. However, understand that your discussing this matter with me does not make me your attorney, as there is no contractual attorney-client relationship existing between you and me simply by virture of our communication via this web-site and/or by virture of any e-mails that may take place between us in the near future. Good luck to you!

Sincerely,

Hardy Parkerson, Atty.

Lake Charles, LA

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Answered on 4/02/07, 9:53 pm


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