U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman cleared Northern Kentucky University in a suit brought by Lauren Hendrix, who had flunked the test and thus the course in her last semester in the program.
Hendrix enrolled in the BSN program in spring 2010. The catalogue at the time listed a final-semester course that all nursing students needed to graduate.
The requirements for that course included a minimum 900 score on a practice licensing exam from Health Education Services Inc. The program had added that requirement after Hendrix enrolled but before she took the course to help ensure that at least 85 percent of its graduates would pass the national licensing exam on their first attempt, as the Kentucky Board of Nursing mandated.
Hendrix received accommodations each of the four times she took the practice exam but failed each time and, thus, failed the course, the decision said.
As a result, the university told her she needed to repeat her final-semester courses. Rather than doing so, she filed an unsuccessful internal appeal and then went to court alleging violation of her due process rights.
In his decision, Bertelsman said the university had the right to change the content of the contested course to require passage of the practice exam.
