Five former nurse anesthesia students have sued Texas Wesleyan University, claiming the Fort Worth school accepted more students than its clinical sites could handle, then quietly dismissed a chunk of them after collecting a full year's worth of tuition. The lawsuit, filed October 2, centers on students enrolled during the 2024-25 academic year in the university's Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice program, a doctoral track required for anyone hoping to become a certified registered nurse anesthetist.
According to the suit, as reported by the Star-Telegram, Texas Wesleyan accepted roughly 10% more students into the program than it had capacity to place, since clinical site placements are typically reserved for second- and third-year students rather than first-years. The five plaintiffs named in the filing are Aleksandra Castro, Linet Koshy, Alyssa Torrez, Eric Barretto and Katherine Cox, all of whom say they were dismissed from the program without the transparency or due process they were owed.
The students allege the breakdown started in the classroom, not the clinic. Two anatomy and physiology courses were allegedly used to gatekeep students before they could even reach the clinical portion of the program, according to the lawsuit detailed by the same Star-Telegram report. Grades and graded exams, the suit claims, weren't posted or returned in a timely way, leaving some students under the impression they were passing right up until they were told they'd failed a final exam and were being dismissed.
Records Access Cut Off During Appeals
Beyond the grading disputes, the plaintiffs say Texas Wesleyan blocked their access to their own education records while they were trying to appeal their dismissals, a move they argue violated federal privacy law. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, institutions are generally required to comply with a student's request to view their own records within a reasonable period, and no more than 45 days, per the U.S. Department of Education's Student Privacy office. The lawsuit also claims some dismissed students had disabilities or unexplained medical emergencies and were not given appropriate accommodations, according to a release describing the plaintiffs' allegations.
The U.S. Department of Education notes separately that Section 504 applies to colleges and universities receiving federal funding, and that failing to provide auxiliary aids in a way that denies a student a program benefit can amount to prohibited discrimination, according to guidance published by the department.
Full First-Year Tuition, Then Dismissal
Perhaps the most pointed allegation in the suit is financial: the former students claim Texas Wesleyan collected the full cost of the first year of the program before dismissing them, according to the Star-Telegram's reporting.
Attorney Jon Velie, representing the students, argued the stakes go well beyond a semester of lost tuition. He said the dismissals would permanently derail the students' careers as certified registered nurse anesthetists, a credential that requires the doctoral degree the program is meant to confer, according to the same release cited by the Star-Telegram's account.
University Says It Disagrees, Points to Decades of Graduates
Texas Wesleyan has pushed back firmly. The university said it strongly disagrees with the allegations brought against it and intends to respond through the legal process, according to WFAA's report on the lawsuit. A university spokesperson, Karen Cantrell, said the school cannot comment further while litigation is pending, per the same WFAA report.
The university said it is proud of its nurse anesthesia program and its decades of preparing skilled nurse anesthetists, adding that graduates work in hospitals and health care systems throughout Texas and the nation. Texas Wesleyan also said it remains committed to the quality of students' education and the standards guiding the program, according to WFAA's reporting.
Online discussion among nursing students, including a thread on the forum allnurses.com, has previously described a program structure in which students spend their first 12 months at the Fort Worth campus before moving to an assigned clinical site for the final 24 months, with some sites reportedly hosting only two students per cohort. That forum post is not official university documentation and does not confirm the program's actual clinical-placement capacity, but it offers a glimpse of how tightly clinical slots are understood to be rationed in the broader nurse anesthesia training pipeline.
