A student at Hingham High School in Massachussetts used generative AI to complete an assignment in their history class. The teacher, upon learning that AI was used to complete the assignment, awarded the student a low grade and punished them with detention. The student's parents, Dale and Jennifer Harris, are suing the school, claiming that the student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI.
"The defendants continued on a pervasive, destructive and merciless path of threats, intimidation and coercion to impact and derail [our son's] future and his exemplary record," the Harris family alleges in its lawsuit, which was initially filed in state superior court before being removed to a federal district court.
Hingham Public Schools, however, claims that its student handbook prohibited the use of "unauthorized technology" and "unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own work."
If there's another false bottom here being kicked out, it's also important to … delve into the details. Punishment for AI-facilitated plagiarism tends to be disproportionate and discriminatory in all the classic American ways, AI detection is snake oil, and schools tend to utilize rules to arbitrary ends whose true purposes are revealed when these outrages are looked into more closely. In any case, the constant use of expensive and time-consuming litigation to solve problems is worse than little master Harris handing in five paragraphs of slop.
