Your D.D.S. Degree's Value
When facing dental school threats to revoke your D.D.S. degree, you should first know your degree's value. Your degree is the foundation for your healing dental services. Dental practice is immensely humane. Your dental practice is a key component in the general health and flourishing of your patients. As a degreed and licensed dentist, you have great community standing, great professional respect, and likely a good to very good income. You also have the satisfaction of enjoying life and supporting your family while doing a very good human service. Appreciate the full benefits of your D.D.S. degree when evaluating how to defend that degree from dental school revocation.
A Dental School Could Revoke a D.D.S. Degree
Your dental school could attempt to revoke your D.D.S. degree. University disciplinary policies frequently reserve the right of the university to pursue degree revocation, including for graduate and professional degrees. The University of Michigan and University of California, Los Angeles, are two prominent examples of universities having degree revocation policies that expressly extend to professional and other graduate degrees. States certainly revoke dental licenses for various forms of serious misconduct. Texas Administrative Code Section 101.8(c)(2) is an example of dental license revocation for various convictions or offenses. But dental schools may follow suit, especially when the graduate's wrong allegedly involved fraud or academic misconduct in obtaining the degree. A federal appeals court recently upheld a prominent professional school's revocation of a professional degree relating to alleged sexual assault and other unprofessionalism the graduate had shown when completing the program.
The Meaning of D.D.S. Degree Revocation
When a dental school revokes a D.D.S. degree, it doesn't just mean that you have to return the physical diploma or certificate on your office wall. It also means that the dental school changes your academic record to reflect that the school took back the degree it had previously awarded. Degree revocation means that any licensing body, employer, insurer, or other agency or entity needing to know whether you hold a D.D.S. degree will know or be able to find out that you no longer do. Indeed, your state's dental licensing rules may require you to promptly report your D.D.S. degree's revocation. Your dental school may also have reserved its right to publicize your D.D.S. degree's revocation not just to licensing officials and employers but also to the public. The University of Colorado, for another example, has publicized a doctoral degree's revocation when its interest was to do so. Anyone who needs or wants to know of your D.D.S. degree's revocation will likely be able to do so.
Facing D.D.S. Degree Revocation
You need to quickly recognize necessary essential defense steps when first receiving notice of your dental school's threat to revoke your D.D.S. degree. Yes, first get over your fear, fright, shock, or other emotional reaction. But don't delay or ignore your prompt, firm, and wise response to your dental school's disciplinary charges. Take these immediate steps when facing D.D.S. degree revocation:
- identify and retain the highly qualified national education attorney you need for your best defense. You can do no better than retaining the Lento Law Firm for the substantial skill, experience, and dedication you need from an attorney advisor for a strategic approach to professional degree defense;
- ensure that your retained attorney promptly notifies school officials that your attorney has appeared on your behalf and direct future communications to the attorney for prompt response and handling. Your attorney's appearance shows the dental school that you are serious and diligent about your D.D.S. degree defense;
- get your retained attorney's help to understand the disciplinary charges, what evidence the school claims to have supporting the charges, and the evidence you may need for an effective defense; and
- get your retained attorney's advice on what steps you must take to ensure that you preserve your dental license and dental employment or practice while defending dental degree revocation.
Dental School Issues Pursuing D.D.S. Degree Revocation
You are not the only one facing D.D.S. degree revocation issues. Your dental school also faces issues when deciding whether and how to proceed with D.D.S. degree revocation. Your retained attorney advisor should know how to address your dental school's revocation proceeding issues to your advantage. Your dental school is likely facing all of these issues:
- the strength of the dental school's case and the credibility and weight of its evidence against you;
- the strength or weakness of your evidence in defense of the dental school's charges;
- the reputation, qualifications, skills, and experience of your retained defense attorney;
- the degree to which pursuit of D.D.S. degree revocation will distract or otherwise adversely affect the school community;
- the reaction of students, faculty, staff, alumni, accreditors, the university board, and donors to degree revocation proceedings;
- the availability of dental school personnel and procedures to pursue D.D.S. degree revocation;
- the publicity, positive or negative, that the dental school and university may receive from pursuing or not pursuing degree revocation.
Academic Grounds for D.D.S. Degree Revocation
Colleges and universities tend to revoke honorary doctoral degrees whenever the recipient's reputation adversely impacts the school. Schools grant honorary degrees to improve the school's reputation by association. Schools revoke honorary degrees to improve the school's reputation by dissociation. But revoking an earned D.D.S. or other graduate or professional degree is different. Professional schools don't generally revoke earned professional degrees based on reputation. Instead, they generally revoke professional degrees when they would not have awarded the degree in the first instance had they known all relevant circumstances. Thus, forging academic records for admission or graduation, falsifying research data submitted to earn the degree, or plagiarizing another's work to complete curriculum requirements are generally grounds for professional or other graduate degree revocation.
Other Grounds for D.D.S. Degree Revocation
A dental school might also pursue a D.D.S. degree revocation if it discovers serious behavioral misconduct committed before graduation under circumstances where the dental school would not have awarded the degree. Dental schools would ordinarily address behavioral misconduct as it occurs during the dental school program. But some misconduct, particularly sexual assault or harassment, may only come to light with later disclosures and complaints after the dental student's graduation. Thus, Title IX policies at universities with dental schools sometimes include degree revocation remedies.
Authority for Revoking a D.D.S. Degree
One way to successfully challenge D.D.S. degree revocation may be to show that the dental school lacks authority for degree revocation. Courts have long generally deferred to school authority on academic matters, including degree revocation. Yet, while courts have generally upheld school authority to revoke degrees, cases have shown that school authority has limits. A recent case held that the University of Texas at Austin was exceeding its authority when revoking a doctoral degree unless it did so through court action. Court action ensures the required due process protections. Public dental schools and other public programs must generally provide those protections whenever affecting substantial property or liberty interests. Due process violations are one way to challenge dental school degree revocation or other disciplines. Your school's disciplinary policy may place its own limits on degree revocation. The University of Washington's degree revocation policy, for example, authorizes only certain grounds while limiting some of those grounds to proceedings initiated within two years of graduation.
Impacts of D.D.S. Degree Revocation
The ways in which D.D.S. degree revocation could affect you depend on your individual and professional circumstances. You should consider those potential impacts as you and your retained attorney advisor formulate your defense strategy. Your interests should drive your defense.
Dental Practice Impacts of D.D.S. Degree Revocation
If you are in active dental practice, then D.D.S. degree revocation would very likely have severe or even crippling job and career impacts. You can't practice dentistry without a dental license. And you can't get or maintain a license without a qualifying dental degree. Lose your dental degree, and you'll surely lose your dental license. Lose your dental license, and you'll surely lose your personal participation in your active dental practice. You may have other management or administrative roles and career options in the dental field that do not require an active license and a valid degree. But losing your D.D.S. degree to revocation could affect the availability of those other roles, too.
Family and Financial Impacts of D.D.S. Degree Revocation
If you depend on active dental practice for your employment and income, then losing your dental license and practice to D.D.S. degree revocation would mean loss of employment income. Loss of dental income may ruin your personal finances, depending on your current assets and obligations. You could lose health insurance and suffer nonpayment and acceleration of mortgage obligations, vehicle loans, professional practice debt, and educational loans. Those losses would naturally affect not only your personal welfare but also the welfare of your dependents. In short, the loss of your dental degree could badly strain or even harm your family members and relationships.
Dental School Procedures for D.D.S. Degree Revocation
Because dental schools must generally provide due process protections to revoke a D.D.S. degree, you and your retained attorney advisor should have substantial opportunities to fight that revocation. The University of Arizona's Student Disciplinary Procedures, for instance, expressly grant formal hearings to graduates facing degree revocation. Those procedures include pre-hearing disclosure of evidence and exchange of exhibits, a full hearing before a university board that makes its recommendation to the university provost, and attendance of the accused student's retained attorney at the hearing. Appeals to another independent decision-maker are also commonly available.
Attorney Advisor for D.D.S. Degree Defense
Your retained disciplinary defense attorney advisor must have the refined academic administrative skills and substantial experience to put your dental school's procedures to effective use in your defense. Academic disciplinary proceedings differ from criminal and civil court proceedings. Local criminal defense attorneys and civil litigators won't generally have the academic administrative skills and experience you need for effective degree revocation defense. Your effective degree revocation defense needs an attorney advisor who can follow the different academic procedures, employ the academic constructs and language, and respect the academic culture. Your attorney advisor can then do the following critical or important tasks for your best D.D.S. degree defense outcome:
- evaluate the dental school's allegations, including getting additional details of what the dental school alleges;
- answer the dental school's charges, making sure to deny false allegations and raise essential defenses;
- obtain the dental school's evidence to evaluate its weight and credibility while helping you identify and gather your exonerating and mitigating evidence;
- research, confirm, and strategically invoke the dental school's procedures while seeking early informal resolution;
- discern and generate win-win opportunities for resolution and present those proposals articulately to school officials;
- attend and conduct conferences, hearings, and appeals with you and on your behalf to advocate for successful resolution; and
- seek alternative special relief through your dental school's oversight channels, such as general counsel or outside retained counsel.
Nationwide Premier D.D.S. Degree Defense
Respect and defend the enormous value of your dental degree. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team and national education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento for your most effective D.D.S. degree defense. The Lento Law Firm has successfully defended hundreds of dental and other professional school students and graduates nationwide, including in cases seeking degree revocation, expulsion, and other serious forms of discipline. Trust the Lento Law Firm to obtain your best possible outcome to D.D.S. degree revocation proceedings. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain the Lento Law Firm.
