Lawyer for academic dismissal hearing?
My location is Houston, TX
I am a trainee who was dismissed today May 20 2026 from an accredited 12 month cardiovascular perfusion training program at a major public university medical school in Houston Texas. Cardiovascular perfusion is a specialized medical field where practitioners operate the heart lung machine during open heart surgery. Graduation from an accredited program is the only pathway to sit for national board certification exams and become a licensed perfusionist. Dismissal from this program effectively ends my career before it begins. I paid $18,000 in tuition. My grades showed a consistent upward academic trend throughout the program. I have 10 business days to file an Advisory Committee appeal with a deadline of approximately June 3 2026.
The stated reason for my dismissal is that I took a required examination without authorization on May 1 2026 — the last day of the semester. Here is what actually happened. I have a formally issued written disability accommodation from my university’s official disability accommodations office. I have two documented conditions — neutropenia and situational phobia in testing environments. My written accommodation specifies that examinations will be completed on a Issued laptop or in paper format in the presence of an approved proctor and that when feasible assessments may be administered in an online proctored format using program issued school encrypted laptops. On the morning of May 1 2026 I attempted to contact program officials before taking the exam to seek guidance on how to proceed. I sent an email at 0840 titled Urgent. I sent a text at 0953. I attempted to call the perfusion office after hours. I attempted to reach the student coordinator by text. I have screenshots with timestamps documenting every one of these contact attempts. A technical delivery failure outside my control prevented my messages from being received. With the last day of the semester deadline bearing down and no response from anyone I made the decision to take the exam rather than miss it entirely. I tested on a school issued laptop — exactly as my accommodation specifies. I used schools proctoring — the school’s approved online proctoring software — exactly as my accommodation authorizes. I passed the exam but failed the course by 1 point
The program is now claiming that I specifically was verbally told I could only take exams with a live in-person proctor and that by using Proctorio I violated that requirement. I dispute that any such verbal agreement was ever made. More importantly my formally issued written accommodation document does not say live proctor or in-person proctor anywhere. It says approved proctor. Proctorio is an approved proctoring system used by the school. I satisfied the approved proctor requirement exactly as my written accommodation states. No amended written accommodation document was ever issued changing my testing terms to require a live in-person proctor. A verbal claim made by program officials cannot override a formally issued written accommodation document from the university’s own disability accommodations office. If the program wanted to change my accommodation terms they were required to issue an amended written document through a formal interactive process. They never did.
Here is where it gets even more egregious. My own dismissal notice contains a footnote written by the program themselves stating that other students at my clinical site were subsequently given express permission to take a different exam online and were not penalized even though they took it without advance permission or an approved proctor. Read that again. Other students took an exam online without permission and without any proctoring system at all and the program excused them after the fact. I took an exam online after multiple documented contact attempts, on a school issued laptop, with an approved proctoring system running, under my formal written accommodation, and I am being dismissed for it. The program excused students who did less than I did procedurally while dismissing me for doing more. The only documented difference between me and those other students in my dismissal notice is that I have a formal written disability accommodation. That is textbook disparate treatment and the program documented it themselves in my own dismissal letter.
The course failure underlying my dismissal is also deeply problematic. I failed the course by only 1 point with an upward academic trend throughout the program. My actual exam score was — a passing grade — as acknowledged in the dismissal notice itself. The program assigned me a zero for taking that exam with the schools lockdown proctoring system under my written accommodation of an approved proctor . But they are stating off a verbal claim that I would only be allowed to test with a live proctor unlike other students .Without that course failure the academic basis for my dismissal disappears entirely. I am being dismissed for a course failure that was caused by the program refusing to honor my written disability accommodation.
This situation does not exist in isolation. There is a much broader pattern of disability discrimination and procedural violations that I believe led to this dismissal. The program director sent me a written email after I disclosed my health conditions mischaracterizing my testing phobia as anxiety about performing difficult clinical cases including transplants and emergencies. That characterization is completely false — I disclosed testing anxiety specifically not clinical performance anxiety — and I have that email preserved. The senior director told me directly in the meeting where I disclosed my disability that he did not think the program was right for me. The program director told me at a disciplinary meeting in March that he would never trust me again and would always take the side of staff members over me — then made every subsequent disciplinary decision against me from that day forward. The disciplinary process violated the program’s own written handbook policies at every single step with no written action plan ever created, wrong personnel at every meeting, notices presented retroactively weeks after alleged incidents, a disciplinary history inflated in the dismissal notice itself, and Medical Directors making the final dismissal decision based solely on one sided information without me ever being present or heard.
I am not primarily seeking financial compensation. I want to be reinstated. I want my written accommodation honored — specifically the right to take my remaining exams on a school issued laptop through the approved online proctoring system exactly as my written accommodation already authorizes. I want to finish this program and become a licensed perfusionist. That is my only goal.
I have an Advisory Appeal hearing soon with the exact people who dismissed me lol and I am urgently seeking advice should I get legal representation for my appeal hearing? Any help is appreciated.