Chiropractic Student Title IX Charges

The Value of a Chiropractic Degree

Chiropractic medicine can be an especially rewarding healthcare field. Students who pursue a degree in chiropractic medicine know how the practice's adjustment of body structures can preserve and restore the nervous system's balanced function, to heal specific maladies, and for general good health. The chiropractic student rightly anticipates rewarding income while looking forward to doing satisfying healing and restorative work. As a U.S. News report indicates, a chiropractic career liberates the doctor from the drugs, surgery, radiation, medical equipment, and other technological tools of an allopathic medicine career while allowing the doctor of chiropractic to enjoy more time helping patients feel better day-to-day. When you chose chiropractic medicine, you made a sound choice that likely fits your values and commitments.

Fight Title IX Charges to Preserve Your Chiropractic Degree

Don't let Title IX sexual misconduct allegations prevent you from pursuing a chiropractic degree that you know is good, desirable, and right for you. Title IX sexual misconduct can get a student dismissed from chiropractic school, just like Title IX charges can get a student dismissed from other college and university programs. Disciplinary sanctions for student misconduct generally run the gamut from warnings and probation right up to suspension and dismissal. Admitting to Title IX sexual misconduct or ignoring Title IX charges so that you suffer default in the school's Title IX sexual misconduct proceeding may very well get you dismissed from your chiropractic program. And if one chiropractic school dismisses you for Title IX misconduct, you'll find it hard to impossible to gain admission to another chiropractic school. If you face Title IX charges at your school of chiropractic medicine, you need skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor representation to aggressively and effectively defend and defeat the charges. Retain premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm student misconduct defense team. Preserve your chiropractic education and career.

Special Title IX Risks for Chiropractic Students

Chiropractic students face special risks of Title IX sexual misconduct allegations. Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funding, as further explained below. But basically, almost any sexual or sex-related act in which a student engages or threatens or proposes to engage could turn into a Title IX misconduct allegation. All that another student, instructor, clinical patient, staff member, or other person with whom the chiropractic student comes into contact has to do is misunderstand, misconstrue, and object to the student's conduct. The risk is that chiropractic is a hands-on practice. The touching that a chiropractor does in practice and that a chiropractic student does in clinical instruction risks misconstruing as sexual touching. Touching is often a trigger for Title IX misconduct allegations, even when the one doing the touching had no sexual intent. And yet, schools of chiropractic medicine are adopting zero-tolerance stances toward patient sexual abuse, following recommendations in a National Library of Medicine article on chiropractic ethics. Title IX misconduct allegations can certainly lead to school disciplinary proceedings that result in suspension and expulsion. You could lose everything for which you are studying and working, simply because someone with whom you come into contact in clinical education misconstrues your actions.

Prevailing Against Title IX Charges

Fortunately, skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor representation can turn the tide against false, unfair, exaggerated, and unsupported Title IX allegations. Your chiropractic school's Title IX charge is simply an accusation or allegation, not a finding that you committed Title IX sexual misconduct. Schools generally have a complainant's information before bringing a Title IX charge. Schools don't generally just make up Title IX allegations. But complainants can exaggerate, misidentify, misremember, and otherwise make allegations that are without factual basis or that do not constitute a Title IX violation even if true. Complainants also sometimes have their own agenda for manufacturing and manipulating allegations. If you aggressively defend Title IX charges, your school of chiropractic medicine will not assume those charges are true. Premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento has successfully defended hundreds of students nationwide on Title IX charges and other misconduct charges. You can prevail against Title IX charges if you get the representation you need.

Procedural Protections Against Title IX Charges

In facing Title IX charges at your school of chiropractic medicine, you may be concerned that you won't get a fair hearing. If you retain a skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor, you will get a fair hearing because federal law and regulations require it. Due process is a constitutional, regulatory, or contractual assurance at your chiropractic school. You just have to invoke due process protections. You cannot assume your school will go by the book when determining the truth and adequacy of the Title IX charges against you. You must hold your chiropractic school to its due process obligations, which you do best by retaining premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm's student misconduct defense team. Federal law and regulations require that your chiropractic school grant you each of the following due process protections, which premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento can aggressively and effectively put to work for your successful defense:

• Give you written notice of each allegation against you so that you and your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor know what to defend
• Allow you and your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor to review all evidence the school claims to have against you
• Presume your innocence on each Title IX charge unless and until the school proves otherwise by the school's evidence
• Accept the burden of proving each allegation true by a preponderance of the evidence if not by clear and convincing evidence
• Give you a live hearing before an impartial panel of decision-makers who are not the investigator in your case
• Ensure that all investigators, decision-makers, and Title IX coordinators are free from bias and conflicts of interest
• Allow your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor to cross-examine witnesses who testify against you
• Permit you and your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor to appeal any adverse decision against you to an independent appeal panel

What Is Title IX Sexual Misconduct?

Title IX is a federal act that requires schools receiving federal funding to prohibit certain forms of sexual misconduct. Title IX applies to schools of chiropractic medicine and other professional schools, just as it does to other colleges and universities. If your chiropractic school doesn't take seriously the Title IX allegations of other students, instructors, clinical patients, or anyone connected with your school, your school could lose its federal funding. That's why schools take Title IX sexual misconduct allegations so seriously. See, for instance, the case of Pearson v Logan University, No. 18-2764 (Eighth Cir. 2019), in which the federal appellate court upheld the dismissal of a Title IX case against the university alleging the school's deliberate indifference to stalking because the school had followed its Title IX policy. Your chiropractic school will have a Title IX policy prohibiting these forms of sexual misconduct and will enforce its policy:

• Quid pro quo sexual harassment: conditioning a school aid, benefit, or service on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct
• Hostile environment sexual harassment so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive to a reasonable person as to effectively deny equal access to the school's education, program, or activity
• Sexual assault without consent or when the affected person cannot consent, including not just forcible penetration but also touching the private body parts of another person for sexual gratification
• Dating violence committed by a person who has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the complainant, including sexual or physical abuse or the threat of such abuse
• Domestic violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the complainant, a person with whom the complainant shares a child, or a person who has cohabitated with the complainant as an intimate partner
• Stalking: engaging in conduct based on sex that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person's safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress
• Retaliation: interfering with any right that Title IX secures, including intimidating, threatening, coercing, or discriminating against others to discourage participation in a title ix proceeding as a complainant or witness

Chiropractic School Title IX Policies

To ensure its federal funding, your chiropractic school will have a Title IX policy prohibiting at least the above several forms of sexual misconduct. Many schools prohibit additional forms of non-Title IX sexual misconduct, such as various forms of sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation could include prostitution, solicitation to prostitution, voyeurism (secret viewing or recording of another's sexual act), sexual blackmail using images or recordings of sexual acts, and similar sexual misconduct that Title IX doesn't necessarily reach. Here are a few examples of Title IX policies at chiropractic schools addressing all Title IX forms of sexual misconduct and, in some cases, other forms of sexual misconduct:

• Texas Chiropractic College's Title IX policy prohibiting sexual misconduct falling under federal Title IX law
• Life Chiropractic College West's Title IX policy prohibiting both Title IX misconduct and non-Title IX sexual exploitation
• Palmer College of Chiropractic's Title IX policy applicable across all its campuses, prohibiting only Title IX sexual misconduct
• Northeast College of Health Sciences' Title IX and nondiscrimination policy prohibiting both Title IX misconduct and non-Title IX sexual exploitation
• Logan University's Title IX grievance process, which it followed in the above case to avoid liability for alleged sexual misconduct

Chiropractic School Sanctions for Title IX Misconduct

Make no mistake: schools of chiropractic medicine will discipline students right up to expelling them from school for Title IX violations. And while expulsion is obviously enormously impactful, lesser discipline can also affect school standing, job prospects, family and mentor relationships, and other important things. The level of sanction typically depends on factors like the student's prior history of misconduct, the student's other good or bad character, the particular nature of the wrong the student committed in this instance, the particular harm the student caused, and whether it appears the student may commit further wrongs in the future. But if the accused student fails to retain a skilled and experienced attorney-advisor to defend the charges, the school may overlook evidence and information that should have mitigated any sanction. In any case, though, the school will have broad authority to punish right up to expulsion. Northeast College of Health Sciences' Title IX policy, for instance, reserves the right to impose any of the following sanctions for Title IX sexual misconduct:

• Oral warning that the student's behavior was unacceptable and that further infractions may result in more severe disciplinary action
• Written reprimand placing the student on probation for a specified period of time, including denying specific privileges, excluding from extracurricular activities, and entering no-contact orders
• Suspension requiring cessation of all student activities for a definite period of time or until specific criteria are met
• Expulsion permanently terminating student status
• Withholding a degree already earned but not yet awarded
• Other actions, including mandated counseling, loss of leadership positions, loss of honors, required letter of apology, unpaid service to the campus or local community, restitution, revocation or restriction of housing privileges, and monetary fines

Chiropractic School Title IX Procedures

To carry out their federal law obligations for fair Title IX procedures, chiropractic schools generally maintain elaborate published Title IX procedures. Your skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor will put those procedures to their best effect in your strategic defense. The procedures in Palmer College of Chiropractic's Title IX Sexual Misconduct Policies and Procedures Handbook are especially clear and elaborate. Those procedures encourage persons suspecting student Title IX misconduct to report it to a Title IX coordinator for the coordinator's evaluation. The Title IX coordinator may attempt informal resolution of minor complaints. If the allegations are of serious Title IX sexual misconduct, the Title IX coordinator assigns an investigator to the formal complaint. Investigators interview the complainant and respondent and any witnesses from which to prepare an investigation report. The accused student gets to read and respond to the investigation report, which can be a critical step warranting your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor's representation. National Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento is often able to negotiate a favorable resolution at the investigation stage, forestalling stressful and time-consuming formal proceedings.

Formal Chiropractic School Title IX Hearings

Under Palmer College of Chiropractic's Title IX Sexual Misconduct Policies and Procedures Handbook, the similar Title IX policy at Northeast College of Chiropractic, and other policies like it, contested cases, meaning those that do not resolve after investigation, proceed to a hearing before a hearing panel the Title IX coordinator constitutes from among trained school representatives. Hearings are a key due process protection that your retained Title IX defense attorney-advisor can help you put to strategic use. A hearing allows you and your attorney-advisor to gather, organize, and present documentary evidence and call favorable witnesses, turning back the Title IX charges. Chiropractic students generally don't have the advocacy skills to prepare for a formal hearing, which is where your retained attorney-advisor comes in. Preparation is nine-tenths of life, the saying goes, which is especially true for formal hearings. Let national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento help your evidence and witnesses carry the day for you at your formal Title IX hearing.

Cross-Examining Adverse Witnesses

Under Title IX procedures at Palmer College, Northeast College, and other chiropractic schools, the hearing panel may only consider the testimony of witnesses who appear at the hearing under cross-examination. This restriction is another key procedural protection. Hearsay written statements do not get into evidence. The witness must instead be at the hearing to testify. Moreover, the accused student's Title IX defense attorney-advisor may attend the hearing to cross-examine adverse witnesses. Cross-examination is the accused student's engine of truth, revealing false, exaggerated, and unsupported allegations. Cross-examination is not even always a matter of proving the witness to be a liar. Cross-examination can simply show that the witness who claims to know something was not in a position to actually observe it and is instead conjecturing or surmising. A skilled cross-examination can, in short, turn everything around in your favor when the complainant's allegations are untrue, exaggerated, or unsupported. Retain national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento to cross-examine those who falsely accuse you or accuse you without factual basis.

Chiropractic School Title IX Appeals

Under Title IX procedures at Palmer College, Northeast College, and other chiropractic schools, the Title IX hearing panel must publish to the accused student and the student's representative a written decision articulating the basis for any adverse findings. The panel's written decision, evidence, and reasons are crucial for another procedural protection: appeal. Under Title IX procedures at Palmer College, Northeast College, and other chiropractic schools, the accused student may appeal adverse findings to an appeal official whom the Title IX coordinator designates. Appeals are another critical stage warranting the representation of a skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor. Appeals under the above Title IX policies require meeting specific appeal grounds. At Northeast College of Chiropractic, for instance, appeal grounds include only procedural irregularities affecting the outcome, evident bias or conflicts of interest, or new evidence not previously available. Your retained appeal attorney-advisor will need to obtain the hearing record, examine it for appeal grounds, and articulate those grounds to the appeal official in a written appeal brief within the short time to complete the appeal. If you have already lost your formal hearing, retain premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento for your appeal.

Alternative Relief for Chiropractic Students

Alternative relief may be available even if you have lost your Title IX formal hearing and any appeals. Remember, don't give up on your chiropractic education without exhausting all avenues. You have too much invested in your education and dreams. From having successfully represented hundreds of students nationwide in school misconduct proceedings, national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento has a network of relationships with school general counsel offices, ombuds offices, outside retained counsel, and similar legal authorities and oversight officials. Those officials generally have the authority or influence to arrange compromise workouts of contested cases, even after they have concluded, to prevent litigation and avoid liability, and when compromise resolution is in everyone's best interest. Attorney-advisor Lento not only has the reputation and relationships to earn him the trust of school officials, but he also knows how to show the school that retaining your enrollment and preserving your education can, on the right terms, be in the school's best interest, too. Retain attorney-advisor Lento to help you ensure that you exhaust all avenues for alternative relief. Preserving your chiropractic education is worth it.

Your Right to Attorney-Advisor Representation

Under federal Title IX regulations, you have the right to attorney-advisor representation. That right does not mean that your school of chiropractic medicine will hire an attorney-advisor for you. But it does mean that you may retain a skilled and experienced Title IX defense attorney-advisor on your own to participate in your Title IX disciplinary proceedings. The Title IX policy at Northeast College of Chiropractic is an example, providing, “An advisor of choice is a person selected by the Complainant or Respondent to advise and accompany the Complainant or Respondent throughout the investigation and adjudication process. An advisor of choice may be any person, including an attorney. The institution does not appoint or pay for an advisor of choice.” While chiropractic school policies may not permit your retained attorney-advisor to object and argue at hearings, your school must permit your retained attorney-advisor to cross-examine witnesses and to consult with and guide you throughout your proceeding. Your right to your attorney-advisor's representation is your single most important right toward a successful defense of false, exaggerated, or unfair Title IX charges.

Premier National Title IX Defense Attorney-Advisor Available

If you face Title IX charges at your chiropractic school, retain premier national Title IX defense attorney-advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm's student misconduct defense team for your aggressive and effective defense. Attorney Lento has helped hundreds of students nationwide successfully defend Title IX charges and other misconduct charges to preserve their education and careers. When your professional education is on the line, you can do no better than to get the best available representation. Call 888-535-3686 to retain attorney Lento and the student misconduct defense team at the Lento Law Firm or use the online service.