Psychiatric Disability in Business School
Among business students, it's little secret that graduate school can have debilitating effects on a student's mental health. One article on graduate school mental health, for instance, cites a Harvard University study finding that rates among graduate school students of moderate to severe anxiety and depression are three times higher than the general population. Bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, eating disorder, and other psychiatric conditions plague the general population with depression, panic attacks, suicidal thinking, sleeplessness, fatigue, withdrawal, hallucination, delusion, and a host of other psychiatric symptoms. And those psychiatric conditions can be markedly worse in competitive, challenging, and isolating business school and other graduate school programs. Yet as another Harvard business publication reports, business schools largely ignore the serious mental health issues in the business field. Business schools instead present case studies as if business students and leaders are uniformly stable, competent, and analytical thinkers without psychiatric disabilities and adverse events. Even though psychiatric disabilities and adverse events are common in business school, the business student can find it hard to get help for them.
Accommodating Psychiatric Disabilities
Business schools should not be ignoring their students' psychiatric disabilities causing debilitating psychiatric adverse events. Federal disability laws like Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require business schools to reasonably accommodate psychiatric disabilities, just like other mental and physical disabilities. Because psychiatric disorders can substantially limit one or more major life activities like thinking, concentrating, studying, processing, reading, and articulating, federal disability laws define those psychiatric disorders as a protected disability. Your psychiatric adverse event may be interfering with your business school education only because your school hasn't properly accommodated your psychiatric disability. Federal disability laws can require business schools to accommodate psychiatric disabilities in a wide range of ways, including:
- Reducing course loads
- Permitting periodic psychiatric leaves
- Providing readers, note-takers, and other support services
- Offering reduced-distraction classrooms and examination forums
- Extending the time permitted for assignments and examinations
- Increasing or reducing group study interactions
- Modifying study, testing, registration, and other procedures
Psychiatric Events Leading to Disciplinary Charges
Many business school students with psychiatric disabilities just struggle through. They may have already learned to manage their disability, or their disability and circumstances may not produce a sufficiently severe event as to interrupt their studies. But other business students aren't so fortunate. Panic attacks, delusions, and other psychiatric adverse events, and the leaves, medication, counseling, and hospitalization those events require, can lead to serious school problems. Those problems fall into two main categories, the academic issues psychiatric events can cause and the behavioral or conduct issues to which psychiatric events can contribute. When the business student's psychiatric event is so severe as to create academic or behavioral issues, the business school may charge the student in a disciplinary proceeding that threatens to suspend and dismiss the student from business school. Psychiatric adverse events can cause or contribute to disciplinary proceedings, resulting in business school dismissal. If you face such charges relating to a psychiatric adverse event, retain the premier representation of national student defense attorney Joseph D. Lento for the skill, experience, and advocacy you need to preserve your business education, degree, and career.
Psychiatric Events and Academic Issues
Psychiatric events in business school can lead to several academic issues. Each of those academic issues can threaten the student's dismissal from business school. Under federal regulation 34 CFR 668.34, business schools and other post-secondary programs receiving federal funding must maintain satisfactory academic progress (SAP) policies. The SAP policy for graduate students at Loyola University Maryland is an example. Business school SAP policies require students to maintain a minimum grade point average, complete a minimum percentage of credits attempted, and graduate within a reasonable time. Students who fail to meet SAP standards face dismissal from the business program. Yet SAP policies also permit the business school to relieve a student from SAP requirements for special circumstances such as a psychiatric adverse event. With skilled attorney representation acting on your behalf, you may be able to save your business education despite a substandard academic performance by invoking one or more of these procedures:
- Grade appeals of poor grades that have lowered your grade point average below the minimum standard
- Grade appeals of failing grades that have both lowered your GPA below standards and contributed to a below-minimum percentage of credits completed versus attempted
- Special circumstances appeal of SAP probation, suspension, or dismissal, based on your psychiatric adverse event
- Disability accommodation request and appeal based on your underlying psychiatric disability causing the adverse event
- Appeal to business school oversight officials for special alternative relief due to your psychiatric adverse event and disability accommodation rights
Psychiatric Events and Behavioral Issues
Psychiatric events in business school can do more than cause academic issues. They can also cause behavioral issues leading to misconduct charges. Business schools maintain student codes of conduct to regulate student behavior around things like substance abuse, property theft or damage, trespass, disorderly conduct, and sexual misconduct. The student code of conduct at Ohio State University is an example. Business students whose psychiatric adverse event causes or contributes to behavioral issues can face unfair misconduct charges under those codes of conduct. Psychiatric events can produce delusions, emotional dyscontrol, hallucination, and other distortion of perception and contribute to other anomalous or bizarre behaviors. Because psychiatric disorders are largely hidden, those events can at times look like reckless or deliberate misbehavior rather than disorder-induced symptoms. And those misunderstandings can lead to misconduct charges. When you retain national student defense attorney Joseph D. Lento to defend you against those behavioral misconduct charges, attorney Lento may invoke the following business school procedures to defend and defeat those unfair charges:
- Responding to notice of charges with documentation of your psychiatric disability and adverse event to induce charge dismissal
- Responding to interviews and investigation requests with diagnostician reports, witness statements, and other evidence of your psychiatric event
- Correcting and supplementing investigation reports with exonerating and mitigating evidence based on your psychiatric disorder
- Negotiating for informal resolution of the charge before the school invokes formal misconduct procedures
- Preparing documentation and witnesses for the formal hearing to show decision-makers the psychiatric cause and explanation for the behavior
- Appealing adverse hearing decisions to other officials better informed and equipped to account for your psychiatric disability
- Reaching out to school general counsel, outside retained counsel, ombuds officials, and other oversight officials to negotiate alternative special relief
What's at Stake in Disciplinary Proceedings
Make no mistake: you have everything for which you worked in business school at stake in your disciplinary proceeding. Business school codes of conduct, like the Student Handbook General Standards of Conduct for graduate students at Harvard University, routinely reserve the right to remove, dismiss, and expel students who violate the code in ways that the business school determines to be unacceptable. Because psychiatric disorders and disabilities are hidden conditions, their role in contributing to apparent misconduct are also generally hidden. In other words, your business school is not likely to presume your innocence due to psychiatric disability without your clear, firm, and articulate advocacy supported by substantial and reliable documentation. That conundrum is why you need the skilled, experienced, effective, and winning advocacy of national student defense attorney Joseph D. Lento. Don't underestimate what's at stake in your business school disciplinary proceeding. Get the premier help you need for a winning defense against unfair charges.
Defense Attorney Available for Psychiatric Event Charges
If you face disciplinary charges relating in any way to a psychiatric adverse event, don't retain an unqualified local criminal defense attorney to represent you. A business school disciplinary proceeding is an administrative proceeding, not a criminal court proceeding. The rules are all different. School disciplinary proceedings involving a psychiatric disability also implicate highly technical federal disability and discrimination laws that local criminal defense attorneys generally don't know. If a psychiatric adverse event has contributed to your academic progression problem or misconduct issue in business school, then you need a skilled and experienced student defense attorney to help disciplinary officials approve the special relief you deserve. Retain national student defense attorney Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm for your winning defense of business school disciplinary charges. Attorney Lento has helped hundreds of college and university students nationwide successfully defend and defeat unfair, exaggerated, and unsupported disciplinary charges. Don't give up, even if you have already lost all hearings and appeals that you believe are available to you. Attorney Lento may be able to negotiate alternative special relief through your business school's oversight channels. Call 888-535-3686 for a consultation now or use the online service.
