Students at now-closed nursing school sue state officials, say they made things worse

Students at a for-profit nursing school in Connecticut that abruptly closed in February filed a federal class-action lawsuit against state officials on Tuesday, arguing their actions and defamatory statements have prevented the students from moving on with their training and careers.

“They’re literally stuck,” said attorney David A. Slossberg, who is part of a team of lawyers representing what could potentially be more than 1,200 former Stone Academy students.

The lawsuit, which focuses on the state’s conduct after the school’s closure, argues the students’ constitutional rights have been violated because they have been deprived of property rights to earned academic credits. After the school’s three campuses were shuttered, a state audit declared thousands of credit hours retroactively invalid, something Slossberg argues officials did not have the authority to do.

“You really have state agencies who weren’t authorized to behave this way, who really went rogue in many respects,” he said. “And instead of making things better, they multiplied the harm to these hard-working students exponentially.”

The plaintiffs also argue they have been deprived of their “liberty rights to their good name, reputation, honor, and integrity” by state officials. The students claim they have been “stigmatized” and unable to transfer any credits, audited or otherwise, to other Connecticut nursing schools because they are now seen as “ill prepared to practice as practical nurses.”

“Unfortunately, all the people in positions of trust failed these students,” said Slossberg, who is working with attorneys Kristen L. Zaehringer, Erica O. Nolan and Timothy C. Cowan on the case. The lawsuit names the commissioners of the Connecticut Office of Higher Education and Connecticut Department of Public Health, as well as two other state officials, as defendants in the case.

It follows an earlier lawsuit filed by the students in May against Stone…