AI lawsuits are here: Parents sue son’s high school over cheating allegations

Massachusetts parents Jennifer and Dale Harris are suing their son’s high school after he was accused of cheating by using artificial intelligence to do research for an assignment.

The parents say that their son used AI to conduct research for a history paper, but that he did not use the tool to write the paper itself, according to WCVB.

“They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened,” Jennifer Harris told the local TV station.

The family says that the student was given detention and that his grade was impacted. They say in a federal court filing that the teenager would be the subject of “irreparable harm,” adding that he was “applying to elite colleges and universities given his high level of academic and personal achievement,” according to ABC News.

The student was not inducted into the National Honor Society as a result of the AI use, according to the filing. The family goes on to argue that the school must “exclude any zero grade from grade calculations for the subject assignment” and that they should “immediately repair, restore and rectify Plaintiff Student’s letter grade in Social Studies to a grade of ‘B.’”

The filing continues that that the teenager should be “retroactively appointed and inducted immediately” into the honor society. The family argues that the school was unclear about how AI may be used, noting that the school handbook doesn’t “have any established rules, policies or procedures for not only the use of artificial intelligence, but what any administrators, faculty or students should do when encountering its use.”

The Hingham High School student handbook and code of discipline states: “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.”

The code also says that plagiarism is the “unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author, including Artificial Intelligence, and the representation of such as one’s own work.”

The handbook adds that a teacher who finds that someone has cheated has to “record a failing grade for that assignment for each student involved” and let the parents know. The teacher must also make the assistant principal aware of what happened, who will then in turn “add the information to the student’s disciplinary file” in addition to taking “further action if they deem it warranted.”

Jennifer Harris told WCVB that the school should make its rules governing the use of AI plainer and “put in place an AI policy that makes sense – that the teachers understand that they then can articulate to the students.”

The legal filing goes on to state that school staff should “undergo training in the use and implementation of artificial intelligence in the classroom, schools and educational environment by a duly qualified third party not employed by the District.”

A spokesperson for the school district told ABC News that “To respect the privacy of the student involved and due to ongoing litigation, [Hingham Public Schools] is unable to provide further details at this time.”