The California Board of Registered Nursing has issued a formal warning after students who raised concerns about an online nursing college reported receiving death threats, harassment, and having their home addresses posted online. The warning comes as 873 recent graduates of Nightingale College remain unable to obtain their California nursing licenses while the board reviews whether the school's distance-learning curriculum meets state standards.
The dispute burst into public view this week after ABC 10News San Diego reported that hundreds of recent Nightingale College graduates were unable to apply for nursing licenses, and that two students who spoke out, Bibi Ijaz and Rachel Baxter, said they were harassed and stalked after raising concerns. Ijaz told the outlet she received death threats after questioning the college's use of virtual reality headsets, and said her and her mother's home addresses were posted online. Baxter also reported receiving death threats after publicly raising concerns about the school, and said her Instagram account was hacked.
On Monday, August 24, Nightingale College filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court, Case No. 26CV020260, against the Board of Registered Nursing and its Executive Officer, Loretta Melby, alleging the regulator unlawfully imposed unpromulgated standards to block out-of-state distance-learning graduates from sitting for the NCLEX-RN exam, according to Nightingale College. Two days later, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Richard Sueyoshi denied the college's ex parte application for a temporary restraining order, ruling the situation was not an emergency because Nightingale had known since May that the board was withholding approval for out-of-state graduates.
A Dispute Over What Counts as Clinical Training
At the center of the fight is a technical but consequential question: whether time spent in a VR headset counts toward California's clinical-hour requirements. The Board of Registered Nursing ruled that VR headset time cannot count toward the state's requirement of at least 500 hours of direct patient-care clinical training, a threshold set under California Code of Regulations Title 16 Section 1426 and Business and Professions Code Section 2786, which also mandates at least 30 supervised hours each in medical-surgical nursing, pediatrics, obstetrics, psychiatric nursing, and geriatrics, per the Board of Registered Nursing.
Paul Murphy, identified in the ABC 10News report, said VR is used for skills and simulation hours, separate from direct patient-care hours, and added that the 500-hour figure was never a rule or regulation and was never formally added. Nightingale College said it has never claimed VR simulations count toward the required 500 direct patient-care hours, and said the board continued approving graduates' applications to take the final licensure test even during the review.
Nearly 2,000 Licensed, Then a Sudden Pause
Nightingale College has nearly 2,000 graduates already licensed in California, having placed students into the profession between 2015 and May 2026 under what it describes as the same curriculum now under scrutiny, according to Nightingale College. The college claimed the board's actions caused lost employment opportunities, enrollment declines, and reputational harm, and said the board had not identified a single curriculum deficiency. Vincent Miranda, also cited in the ABC 10News report, said Nightingale's curriculum must meet California's equivalent education and training standard, a requirement rooted in Business and Professions Code Section 2736, which allows the board to license out-of-state graduates only if their coursework is deemed equivalent to California's approved prelicensure instruction.
Loretta Melby said the Nightingale curriculum did not appear to meet the board's requirements based on information reviewed so far. Rachel Baxter, for her part, reported that every clinical placement she received was at a skilled nursing facility, leaving her without hands-on exposure to other required clinical areas, and said she used a virtual reality headset to role-play a nurse with an AI patient.
Transcript Errors Add to the Scrutiny
Complicating the review, the board discovered transcript issues earlier in 2026 after Nightingale College transcripts erroneously indicated multiple applicants had completed required coursework and graduated when they had actually been dismissed. Nightingale College said the transcript issues involved two students with code-of-conduct issues who proceeded through licensure without the college's knowledge, and said it reviewed and disclosed the discrepancy after discovering it, according to Paul Murphy. Miranda reported that the transcript errors raised concerns about other undetected erroneous transcripts.
Reza Pejuhesh said unprofessional conduct can cause a nursing license application to be denied or a license to have restrictions placed on it, an authority the board holds under California Code of Regulations Title 16 Section 1403 and Business and Professions Code Section 480, which covers transcript discrepancies and fraudulent misrepresentation. The Board of Registered Nursing received an increase in complaints about Nightingale in 2025, and told the court that the public could be harmed if unqualified nursing applicants received licenses, per the court filing.
Harassment Prompts a Board Warning
Bibi Ijaz raised her concerns publicly at an August 11 California Board of Registered Nursing meeting before reporting the harassment and stalking that followed. In response, the California Board of Registered Nursing issued a warning to people sending death threats to students who raised concerns about Nightingale College. Nightingale College said the threats are unacceptable and that it does not tolerate harassment, adding that it acts immediately on harassment reports under its code of conduct and Title IX processes. The college also posted a website message calling the ABC 10News reporting misleading.
Jeffrey Olsen said Nightingale College is doing everything it can to get graduates licensed, and said he was upset by the possibility that graduates could not successfully practice as nurses. For the 873 graduates whose applications remain on hold, the curriculum review may require some to return to school for a semester or longer before their licenses move forward.
A Statewide Shortage Raises the Stakes
The standoff is unfolding against a severe statewide nursing shortage. California faces a 13 percent deficit in registered nurses, translating to roughly 42,590 unfilled RN positions, the largest absolute nursing workforce shortage of any state in the country, according to Career Development Institute figures citing federal workforce projections. Nightingale College, based in Salt Lake City and founded in 2010, operates blended distance-learning nursing programs in more than 20 states and holds accreditation from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.
The fight in California is not Nightingale's only regulatory battle. In February, the college, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, filed federal lawsuits against nursing boards in Georgia and Montana challenging restrictions on out-of-state distance-learning programs under the Dormant Commerce Clause. Heightened scrutiny of out-of-state nursing credentials nationwide traces in part to Operation Nightingale, the unrelated 2023 federal crackdown on a Florida-based fake diploma scheme, which Hoodline previously covered in its sentencing phase.
For now, Judge Sueyoshi's ruling leaves the board's application hold in place while the underlying lawsuit, Case No. 26CV020260, proceeds through Sacramento County Superior Court. The case is expected to test how far California can go in applying its clinical-training standards to graduates of out-of-state distance-learning nursing programs.
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