Court Refuses to Set Aside Discipline of Student for Submitting AI-Generated Assignment (with Hallucinations)
From Harris v. Adams, decided Wednesday by Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson (D. Mass.):
In December 2023, school officials at Hingham High School (“HHS”) determined that RNH and another student, both of whom were juniors at the time, had cheated on an AP U.S. History project by attempting to pass off, as their own work, material that they had taken from a generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) application. Although students were permitted to use AI to brainstorm topics and identify sources, in this instance the students had indiscriminately copied and pasted text from the AI application, including citations to nonexistent books (i.e., AI hallucinations).
The students received failing grades on two parts of the multi-part project, but they were permitted to start from scratch, each working separately, to complete and submit the final project. By way of discipline, RNH was required to attend a Saturday detention, and in the spring of 2024, he was rejected from the school’s National Honor Society, although he was ultimately permitted to reapply and has since been admitted. {RNH, a current senior at HHS, is described in the Complaint as a “three-sport varsity student-athlete with a high [GPA]” who is “in the top of his class.” In addition to having a high GPA, RNH received a 1520 on the SAT and a perfect score on the ACT, putting him “in the top 1/4 of 1% of students taking the [ACT].” Plaintiffs report that RNH intends to apply early decision or early action to elite colleges and universities, such as Stanford University.}
Plaintiffs, RNH’s parents, have sued HHS teachers and school officials, also naming the Hingham school committee as a defendant. Invoking the Due Process Clause …, they ask this Court to undo the consequences that school officials imposed. Plaintiffs contend that HHS failed adequately to inform RNH about its standards for academic honesty as they apply to the use of AI, that Defendants were unfair in concluding that RNH had violated the school’s academic integrity policies, and that HHS imposed unduly harsh consequences. Plaintiffs ask the Court to expunge RNH’s disciplinary record (i.e., the Saturday detention) and to raise his grade in AP U.S. History from a C-plus to a B.
Defendants, in response, point out that RNH was repeatedly taught the fundamentals of academic integrity, including how to use and cite AI. Defendants argue that HHS officials reasonably concluded that this case did not implicate subtle questions of acceptable practices in deploying a new technology, but rather was a straightforward case of academic dishonesty. Defendants emphasize that, in any event, the Constitution does not empower judges to substitute their judgments for those of teachers and school officials, who are afforded broad discretion when it comes to grading and discipline.
Plaintiffs have moved for a preliminary injunction. Given that RNH is a senior, and that many colleges and universities have already begun accepting early decision or early action applications, Plaintiffs argue that RNH will suffer irreparable harm if the relief he seeks is not granted on an expedited basis (i.e., before he needs to submit college applications)….
The court denied the preliminary injunction, concluding that plaintiffs “Defendants have the better of the argument on both the facts and the law.” The opinion is over 16,000 words long, but here’s a key excerpt:
On the facts, there is nothing in the preliminary factual record to suggest that HHS officials were hasty in concluding that RNH had cheated. Nor were the consequences Defendants imposed so heavy-handed as to exceed Defendants’ considerable discretion in such matters.
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