You've earned your college or university degree. Congratulations! Your world must feel as if it is opening up to opportunities everywhere. Sure, challenges remain moving to a new town, job interviews, an on-the-job learning curve, and maybe marriage, a mortgage, and children. But earning your degree was a huge and difficult accomplishment in which you and others close to you invested tremendous time, effort, and resources. And now, you've done it, accomplishing something that no one can ever take away.
The Degree Revocation Shock
Or can they? You probably never dreamed that your college or university would threaten to revoke your degree. Degree revocation never crossed your mind. Not only didn't you expect to give your college or university any cause to seek degree revocation, but you also likely didn't even consider that degree revocation was possible. Some college or university graduates go on to glory. Others go on to shame. Every college or university has its star alumni, and every college or university has its scoundrels. Some make a great name for themselves with their school's credentials. Others make the news for the wrong reasons. Life happens. What's a college or university got to do with you shortly or long after you've left campus with your school's degree?
The Degree Revocation Conundrum
Degree revocation indeed presents an unusual conundrum, a legal and administrative puzzle that both the accused student or graduate and the accuser's college or university must somehow work out. The student's side is fairly straightforward: fight, fight, fight, with an effective strategic approach to overcome the disciplinary charges. You paid for the degree, and the school awarded it. Case closed. But the school has other things to consider before deciding whether and how to go about degree revocation. And with your help from National Education Attorney Joseph D. Lento and his Student Defense Team, you may be able to convince your school not to pursue degree revocation. Your school may be considering:
- the fairness to you of taking an action that could seriously damage your life prospects when you may already be facing other serious issues;
- the negative publicity that degree revocation could bring to a situation about which school students, alumni, and other constituents may not know;
- whether pursuing degree revocation may address and turn back negative publicity the school has already received;
- how employers, accreditors, and regulators regard the school's responsibility to seek or not to seek degree revocation;
- the cost and administrative burden of pursuing degree revocation, and the distraction degree revocation proceedings may cause;
- whether the school has the legal and policy authority to pursue degree revocation and, if so, through what procedure; and
- whether the student or graduate will resist degree revocation proceedings and, if so, how effectively with which attorney advisor's help.
Grounds for College and University Degree Revocation
The primary reason colleges and universities revoke degrees is to protect the integrity of the degrees that other graduates hold. Colleges and universities must ensure the integrity of their degree credentials. If a student hasn't completed the curriculum requirements for a degree and met degree assessment standards, then the college or university shouldn't award the degree. And if a college or university awards a degree to a student who hasn't met the degree's curriculum requirements and assessment standards, the school should arguably revoke the degree. Academic misconduct is thus the primary cause for degree revocation. Types of academic misconduct can include:
- cheating on course assignments or exams, using unauthorized materials, or getting unauthorized assistance;
- altering previously graded work to improve scores and grades, and submitting forged academic approvals or transcripts;
- plagiarism representing others' work as one's own work for course credit without attribution;
- self-plagiarism submitting one's own same work in multiple courses for credit without disclosing the re-submission and against assignment rules;
- alteration and fabrication of research data or laboratory results and other fraudulent misrepresentations.
Authority for College and University Degree Revocation
Colleges and universities generally claim authority for their degree revocation proceedings in their academic policies. Many colleges and universities expressly warn of their right to revoke a degree as discipline for academic misconduct leading to the degree's award. Schools argue that those policies are effectively part of the tuition agreement with students. The agreement isn't for the student to earn a degree any way you can, including by cheating, and it's yours. The agreement is instead for the student to earn the degree following the school's policies. But just because a school claims authority to revoke a degree doesn't mean that the school has the authority. Courts have at times upheld student claims that their school violated their due process rights when seeking degree revocation or outright lacked state authority to revoke degrees. The Lento Law Firm Team can advise you whether your school is exceeding its authority when threatening degree revocation.
Example College and University Degree Revocation Policies
These prominent universities, like other colleges and universities nationwide, all expressly reserve the school's right to revoke a degree as discipline for academic misconduct or, in some cases, other misconduct:
- the University of North Carolina;
- the University of California Berkeley;
- the University of Florida;
- the University of Minnesota;
- the University of Chicago; and
- the University of Virginia.
Degree Revocation's Devastating Impact
Degree revocation holds potentially devastating impacts. True, education isn't everything. But education can mean an awful lot. Not getting to earn an education can be a crippling obstacle. Yet losing an education you've already earned can be an even more debilitating blow. Consider the following potential degree revocation impacts when deciding whether and how to fight your school. If you lose your degree, you may not suffer all these impacts, but you're likely to suffer at least some of them. And any one of them could have a very big and unfortunate impact on your life.
Degree Revocation Impact on Education
Degree revocation first impacts the educational program you are currently in when your school threatens to revoke your degree or any further schooling you plan. One degree forms the foundation for another. If you gain admission to a four-year school based on an associate's degree that your two-year school revokes, your four-year school will likely dismiss you from its program. The same thing applies to graduate school, professional school, and post-graduate training. If one school revokes your degree, all your subsequent educational credentials may fall like dominoes. You may also not get into a new school or even attempt to repeat and re-earn the revoked degree. Your educational career may be over due to degree revocation.
Degree Revocation Impact on Jobs and Careers
Degree revocation next impacts jobs and careers. Employers generally hire for skills. They also hire for credentials proving the applicant holds those skills they need. Your degree certifies that you have the knowledge and skill your employer or anticipated employer needs. You are probably in or seeking a job for which your degree qualified you. That's a big reason why we pursue education, for the job and career that follow it. If you lose your degree, you are losing the jobs and careers for which your degree qualified you.
Degree Revocation Impacts on Licenses
Degree revocation also impacts licenses and certifications. Workers generally seek licenses and certifications to enter the employment fields that the issuers of those credentials regulate. You can't work in medicine without a medical license. You can't work in dentistry without a dental license. You can't work as a teacher without teacher certification. The list of regulated fields goes on and on. If you lose the degree that qualified you for the license or certification, then you're sure to lose the license or certification with it. And you then won't work in that licensed capacity in your field.
Degree Revocation Impacts on Finances
Degree revocation also impacts your finances. When degree revocation means loss of a license, certification, job, and career, it generally means loss of substantial income. Yes, you can often find self-employment or regular jobs when you don't have the degree you expected or no longer have the degree you earned. But those jobs often don't offer nearly the financial reward that your degreed job and career offered. Job loss and loss of income can mean unpaid mortgage or rent and loss of housing, unpaid vehicle loans and loss of transportation, and so on. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, especially those who are just starting their careers while managing educational debt. Degree revocation can mean a financial house of cards tumbling down.
Degree Revocation Impacts on Family
Degree revocation can also impact one's family. Students who earn degrees and take rewarding jobs often support a spouse, children, elderly or disabled parents, and even dependent siblings and other family members. Lose the degree and job income for which the degree qualified you, and you may see very difficult family impacts. And couples argue about finances as much as anything else. Loss of finances can mean extraordinary strains on family members and family relationships.
Degree Revocation Impacts on Health
Degree revocation can also impact your mental and physical health. Degree revocation surely impacts your sense of confidence, value, and self-worth. You can lose your goals, ambition, and direction. Those impacts and impacts that you observe on your family can lead to negative changes in your physical activities, diet, sleep, and other health habits. Loss or gain of weight, sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, suicidal ideation and other symptoms of depression can further result. In short, degree revocation can have truly devastating effects, giving you every reason to fight degree revocation with everything you've got.
Fighting Degree Revocation
You can fight degree revocation. Public colleges and universities must provide students and graduates with due process when affecting their substantial property and liberty rights. Private schools generally have similar contractual obligations. An awarded degree ordinarily represents a substantial property right. Using the degree for further education, licensure, jobs, and careers ordinarily represents a substantial liberty interest. Colleges and universities nationwide generally offer published procedural protections, like those at the University of Minnesota, through which you can fight degree revocation.
How We Can Help Fight Degree Revocation
National education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm Student Defense Team can help you fight academic discipline charges seeking degree revocation. Colleges and universities generally have procedural protections for students and graduates facing degree revocation. But you must invoke those procedures. You can't sit idly by expecting your school to defend you. Your school is your adversary in a degree revocation proceeding. Your retained attorney advisor may help you with any or all of the following protective steps for your best chance to retain your degree and defeat the disciplinary charges:
- notify the school to direct communications to your retained attorney advisor for prompt response in the course of your representation;
- answer the charges, denying false allegations while raising appropriate defenses;
- demand that the school follow its protective procedures, including conducting such early informal conferences as may lead to resolution;
- request, acquire, and evaluate the school's evidence purporting to support the disciplinary charges;
- identify, organize, and present your exonerating and mitigating evidence against the charges;
- communicate, meet, and negotiate with school investigators and officials for voluntary resolution of all charges;
- attend, participate, and advocate in your interview, hearing, appeal, and other matters for the best resolution;
- identify, communicate, and negotiate with the school's general counsel or other oversight officials for alternative special relief; and
- pursue court appeals and litigation, and regulatory complaints, as a last resort in the event the school proceeds with degree revocation.
Premier Degree Revocation Defense Available
The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team has helped hundreds of students and graduates nationwide successfully defend degree revocation, dismissal, suspension, and other college and university discipline. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain the Lento Law Firm Team and premier education attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento for your degree revocation defense, no matter the location or level of your degree program.
