A Massachusetts couple claims that their son’s high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.
An old and powerful force has entered the fraught debate over generative AI in schools: litigious parents angry that their child may not be accepted into a prestigious university.
In what appears to be the first case of its kind, at least in Massachusetts, a couple has sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project. Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments and that the punishment visited upon their son for using an AI tool—he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.
Yeah, I’m 100% with the school on this one.
Unless the school used one of those ai detection services that are known for giving false positives, I’ll side with the school.
The kid used AI. The lawsuit doesn’t argue they didn’t and are being unfairly punished. They’re arguing that there weren’t any rules explicitly saying they couldn’t use AI.
Sounds like rich parents mad at the world cuz their kid fucked up. How can they ruin our perfect Billy’s life over a decision he made, knowing full well it was wrong!!! Now he might have to go to a less prestigious college… Boohoo!
It sounds like all schools should explicitly state no LLM or equivalent on their assignments.
My wife teaches, and she can spot the AI essays at a distance, it’s not hard.