SUNY Oswego

I am writing to bring immediate public attention to a severe breakdown of institutional accountability, constitutional due process, and whistleblower protection occurring right here at SUNY Oswego. As an incoming student who has already moved onto campus for the Fall 2026 semester, I have been subjected to a coordinated effort by university officials to arbitrarily penalize my academic work, deny me fundamental due process, and push me out of my housing just as my semester begins.
This crisis stems from a complete disregard for standard institutional procedures by Instructor Kenneth Nichols and EOP Director Joey Tse. On August 3, 2026, Instructor Nichols arbitrarily assigned me a punitive zero grade on my final paper. Rather than evaluating my official Brightspace submission on its merits, Nichols explicitly admitted in writing that he and another staff member based this failing grade on a shared personal belief that generative AI was involved. He did this while ignoring my established professional writing portfolio, imposing unverified formatting critiques, and demanding an ad-hoc live typing interrogation without ever providing formal written notice of an academic integrity charge.
In my view, the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP)—a program originally created to give low-income students a chance—is functioning as a systemic scam to weed out students the school does not see as a good fit. If you fail to meet an unwritten 80% benchmark, you are dropped, and approximately 10 students have already been dropped from SUNY Oswego under these conditions. Meanwhile, if you have the money to pay full tuition, you only need to maintain a 2.0 GPA to stay in good standing. It is deeply sad to see a program meant to uplift disadvantaged students being used to weed us out, including myself.
When I submitted a formal written grievance against EOP Director Joey Tse on August 6, 2026—copying high-level university administrators including Provost Dr. Kate Pechenkina—retaliation was swift. Less than thirty hours later, Director Tse weaponized his position to summarily rescind my Fall 2026 admission. He manufactured an artificial final score of 78.77%—lowering it below that unwritten 80% threshold solely because of Nichols’s unverified zero—and executed this dismissal before any formal hearing, finding, or notice of a show cause could ever take place.
Simultaneously, the Division of Residence Life began engaging in bad-faith stonewalling regarding the clearance of my registered emotional support animal, Luna, an 85-pound Siberian Husky. These combined actions were clearly engineered to force an immediate, constructive eviction while I was already physically present on campus.
Public institutions like SUNY Oswego are legally bound to respect student rights and uphold constitutional due process. When administrative power is abused to retaliate against students who speak up, it undermines the integrity of the entire university community. I have formally served university leadership with a 48-hour window to correct these violations, reinstate my student status, clear my housing and animal accommodations, and administratively adjust my grade.
Education is a right, not a tool for retaliation. I am speaking out because prospective and current students deserve to know how administrative overreaches are being handled behind closed doors, and because institutional accountability matters.
Respectfully submitted,
Hope Ellis
SUNY Oswego Student
[email protected]
315-561-5923