Massachusetts student’s punishment for AI use can stand, US judge rules

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A federal judge has rejected a bid by the parents of a Massachusetts high school senior to force his school to expunge his disciplinary record and raise his history class grade after officials accused him of using an artificial intelligence program to cheat on a class assignment.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson in Boston on Wednesday ruled that officials at Hingham High School reasonably concluded that the use of the AI tool by Jennifer and Dale Harris’ son to complete a class project violated academic integrity rules.

The judge as a result declined to issue an order at a preliminary stage in the litigation that would force the school to expunge their son’s disciplinary record and raise his AP U.S. History grade from a C-plus to a B.

Levenson said the emergence of generative AI “may present some nuanced challenges for educators.” But he said the school’s plagiarism policy was adequate to alert students they could not copy text from another source and pass it off as their own.

Gareth Norris, a lawyer for the school, called the ruling “factually accurate and legally sound.” The parents’ attorney did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The parents sued after school officials concluded in December 2023 that during their son’s junior year, he cheated on an AP U.S. History assignment by copying and pasting text generated by an online AI tool, including citations to nonexistent books, without attribution.

As punishment, the student had to attend a Saturday detention and was rejected from the school’s National Honor Society, though he was later allowed to reapply and gained admission.

His parents argued the school violated his due process rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Massachusetts Constitution by not adequately informing him about how its academic honesty standards apply to the use of AI.

Their son testified that he had been confused about the rules regarding the use of AI, which students were allowed to use to generate ideas and identify sources.

Levenson said the evidence showed the teen and his class partner did not simply use AI to help formulate research topics but “indiscriminately” copied text produced by an AI tool Grammarly and did not even review the “sources” it provided them.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)