To start, I’m a recent graduate of Tiffin University, and I’m writing this because what I experienced there needs to be public. What happened to me this last spring should alarm anyone who believes in fairness, disability rights, or accountability in higher education. This is about how a university systematically retaliated against me after I requested disability accommodations, silenced me when I spoke up, and then tried to cover it up with lies, manipulation, and delayed “resolutions.” Out of respect for privacy, I’ll only be referring to university officials by their title and initials.
A - The Internship that started it all.
• In Spring 2025, I was enrolled in SCS470, my senior internship course. I had already completed over 50 verified hours at my placement site and was making progress toward the final requirement. At the end of February, I began requesting disability accommodations and raised concerns about how my internship was being handled, and the tone from the university changed completely. Emails stopped being answered promptly, staff who had been previously supportive became hesitant to engage. Administrators who had once been cooperative grew distant and defensive.
• Then, without warning, I received notice that my internship was terminated on March 17, 2025. No meeting, no hearing, and no written explanation beyond vague references to “program decisions.” I was never given a chance to defend myself or even understand the accusation. This was a direct violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), both of which guarantee due process and protection from retaliation for disabled students.
B - The Administration’s Misinformation and Retaliation
• The dean of my program, L.E., sent out a mass email claiming I had never been officially enrolled in my internship and that there were “concerns” about my professionalism. That wasn’t true, my application had been submitted with staff assistance, I had completed over 50 hours on site, and no one ever issued a formal warning or documented any misconduct. That same message was copied to multiple people, including staff at my placement site, spreading unverified claims about me to outside parties without my consent.
• On April 1, I was scheduled to meet with the Dean of Students, D.P. When I arrived, he told me he’d be walking me over to meet with the Vice Provost, P.P., instead. I didn’t know that was going to happen until the moment he said it. For context, P.P. is a former Secret Service agent who spent 23 years there and also worked as a special agent for the ATF. Knowing that made the meeting even more intense, he carried himself with a lot of authority. For my own protection, I decided to record the meeting, which is legal in Ohio since it’s a one-party consent state. During the conversation, Vice Provost P.P. admitted that the situation in his words was a “three-way f-up.” He acknowledged that mistakes had been made by multiple people in the administration but then told me there was no formal process to appeal or correct any of it. He downplayed everything, said there wasn’t much that could be done, and basically tried to convince me to move on. To end the meeting, I told him that I would like him and the Provost to reconsider their decision on the summer class and then I thanked him for his time and left his office.
• After that meeting, I thought the situation was settled exactly as we’d talked about, that I’d take time to review the proposal before deciding. A few hours later, I received an email from the Provost saying that the Vice Provost had informed him I had already agreed to the terms. That wasn’t true, I had never agreed to anything. I immediately replied to correct the record and explain that I hadn’t accepted those conditions, but my response was ignored. From that point forward, the administration acted as if my consent had been given, even though it hadn’t. It was another example of how they rewrote the facts to protect themselves. Around this same time, I learned that the university had also lost my 504 disability documentation, the paperwork that officially outlined my approved accommodations. I had submitted it months earlier, and those accommodations had been in place and recognized. When I asked why they were missing, no one could give me an answer. Losing those records meant my legal protections were essentially erased in the middle of the semester. It wasn’t an accident, it fit the same pattern of avoidance and retaliation that had been happening since I first spoke up.
• On April 7, I met with D.P. again and set a clear deadline: 4:00 p.m. on April 9. I said that if there wasn’t a fair resolution by then, I’d go public. On April 9, the university sent me two different meeting invitations—one from D.P. for 3:00 and another from the provost’s assistant for 3:30. I went to the 3:00 meeting, which turned out to be the right one. When I sat down with the provost, he immediately told me that recording wasn’t allowed because of “university policy.” I knew Ohio is a one-party consent state, but I followed his instruction and put my phone on the table. That meeting felt more like control than resolution. They sent their final “resolution” email at 4:45 p.m.—forty-five minutes after my deadline. It said that I’d be enrolled in SCS470 for the spring, that my internship hours would count, and that I’d have to write a 10-page paper in place of the internship. The provost himself would be the instructor of record, the one assigning the rubric, grading the paper, and entering the final grade. It was clear they wanted to close the loop internally instead of holding anyone accountable.
• When I reviewed the written resolution, I noticed something that stood out—the provost had forgotten to include a nondisclosure agreement. That meant I was under no obligation to stay silent. It confirmed how rushed and poorly handled the entire process was. They weren’t protecting me as a student; they were protecting themselves as an institution. I turned in the 10 page paper on April 21, and then I submitted multiple FERPA requests on April 22 and a clarification on April 24 which asked for access to all internal communications, notes, and records related to my internship, accommodations, and academic standing. When I received an initial set of documents in response, one thing immediately stood out, my original internship application was included in the files. This was the same document they had publicly claimed was never received. It proved they’d been lying all along and that their justification for terminating my internship was false. I knew at this point that they were actively trying to sweep the situation under the rug and I wasn’t about to allow that to happen.
C - Graduation day and the FERPA cover-up
• By the time graduation came around, I thought the worst was over. I had already filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Office for Civil Rights before the ceremony even took place. I submitted it on April 25, outlining the discrimination, retaliation, and procedural failures that had followed my accommodation requests. I wanted to make sure it was filed as a “current student” since I was still in school during all of this, and I figured that once it was filed, the school would at least start acting cautiously. Instead, things only got worse. On May 3, I arrived at commencement ready to close that chapter. But when I picked up my card, my name wasn’t listed under Latin honors in the program, even though my GPA clearly qualified me for cum laude. The card they gave me didn’t have any distinction printed on it either. When I asked why, I was told I was “ineligible” because honors were based on the GPA from the previous fall. Nobody had ever told me that policy existed, and the only reference came in a short email from the registrar less than two weeks before graduation.
• When I raised the issue, staff admitted that I wasn’t the only one — they said this happens every year. They knew it was unfair but did nothing to fix it. After I pressed further, the registrar and another staff member confirmed that my GPA did qualify me. Instead of making an official correction, they grabbed a Sharpie and wrote “cum laude” on my card by hand minutes before the ceremony started. It was humiliating, everyone else’s recognition was printed and official, while mine was scribbled on in marker. That day should have been about finally finishing everything I’d fought through — but it turned into another reminder that I wasn’t being treated the same as everyone else.
• Two days later, on May 5, I sent a formal email documenting the incident and asking for clarification of the policy, confirmation that my transcript would reflect my correct honors, and an explanation for how this happened. The provost’s response spoke volumes. He didn’t reply to me directly — instead, he sent a one-line email to the staff I had copied on my message that said: “Do not answer.” I was included on that thread and saw it in real time. That was their answer to a student with an active federal complaint who was asking for his records to be corrected. After that, I submitted multiple FERPA requests asking for access to all communications, notes, and records related to my internship, accommodations, and graduation. They either ignored the requests entirely or sent incomplete responses. Even after I clarified the request under FERPA law, they withheld critical internal communications.
• At this point, it was obvious they were stonewalling and trying to contain the fallout rather than comply with federal law. I reached out to the university president on May 13 as a final internal attempt to resolve the situation. She briefly acknowledged my message and said someone from the university would follow up, but no one ever did. I wasn’t surprised, it was the same silence that matched the pattern I’d been dealing with for months. On May 15, two weeks after graduation, the university finally sent a partial response to my FERPA request. The file was obviously scrubbed — it omitted internal emails, meeting notes, and decision records that were directly related to my internship and grievance. It was clear where the university stood, there was nothing left for me to do except turn in my external complaints.
I ended up filing formal complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC), the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Disability Rights Ohio (DRO). What happened wasn’t a simple misunderstanding, it was a deliberate pattern of disability-based discrimination, retaliation, and deceit by university leadership.
As of now, I’m still waiting to hear back from the Office for Civil Rights. My complaint is active, and I’ve been in contact with their regional office since the spring. The case is still under review, and I plan to keep pushing until there’s an official finding. I’m sharing this publicly because universities rely on silence and confusion to get away with this. No student should have to go through what I did just to be treated fairly. Regardless if I “win” or not, I’m proud of the way that I took a stand against an entire university, this fight wasn’t easy, but it was worth it in ways I can’t even begin to describe.
