Judges rule in favor of school that gave students a bad grade for using AI

A federal judge has ruled that a Massachusetts school was probably within its rights to discipline a student who used generative artificial intelligence to complete an assignment.

Jennifer and Dale Harris, the student’s parents, sued the Hingham school board earlier this year, arguing that the high school’s policies prohibiting academic dishonesty did not explicitly say students could not use AI. They asked the federal district court for a preliminary injunction that would remove the detention their son received from his college record and raise his grade in his AP history class, where he cheated from a C-plus to a B

“There is nothing in the preliminary hearing record to suggest that (Hingham High School) officials jumped to the conclusion that (Harris’ son) cheated,” Judge Paul Levenson wrote in an order denying the family’s request for a preliminary injunction against the district. . “Nor were the consequences imposed by the defendants so severe as to exceed the defendants’ considerable discretion in such matters.”

Another student who collaborated with plaintiffs’ son on the project and was also disciplined for cheating did not sue the school district.

Levenson wrote that the evidence shows that students did not simply use AI to formulate research topics or identify potential sources. “Instead, they appear to have indiscriminately copied and pasted text that was generated by Grammarly.com.” The copied text included citations for non-existent books – which seems to be one of the things the AI ​​is the best in generation— including a book written by author Jane Doe.

In their lawsuit, the Harrises said Hingham school officials followed a “pervasive, destructive and ruthless course of threats, intimidation and coercion to harm and derail (our son’s) future and exemplary record.” The discipline he received hurt his chances of getting into elite colleges like Stanford University, they argued.

But Levenson said there was “no dispute” that school officials had given the Harrises ample opportunities to express their views before the trial and that the family had not shown any wrongdoing by school officials.

Instead of failing to clarify the school’s AI policies, Levenson wrote, the AP English teacher at Hingham High School taught a lesson about academic integrity and expectations for the use of AI during the first week of a class he was in. enlisted son of Harris. She also sent students a document instructing them not to use AI without permission or copy and paste blocks of text into assignments.

While their request for a preliminary injunction was denied and Levenson doesn’t seem particularly convinced by their arguments, Harris’ lawsuit against the Hingham school board remains alive.