A Massachusetts couple claims that their sonβs 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 toolβhe received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignmentβhas harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.
Yeah, Iβm 100% with the school on this one.
Looks like the handbook does explicitly mention it:
Academic Integrity: Cheating and Plagiarism To cheat is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. In an academic setting, cheating consists of such acts as communicating with other student(s) by talking or writing during a test or quiz; unauthorized use of technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), during an assessment; or any other such action that invalidates the result of the assessment or other assignment. Plagiarism consists of the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author, including Artificial Intelligence, and the representation of such as oneβs own work. Plagiarism and cheating in any form are considered disciplinary matters to be addressed by the school. A teacher apprehending one or more students cheating on any graded assignment, quiz or test will record a failing grade for that assignment for each student involved. The teacher will inform the parent(s) of the incident and assistant principal who will add the information to the studentβs disciplinary file. The assistant principal may take further action if they deem it warranted. See Code of Discipline.
