Student “indiscriminately copied and pasted text,” including AI hallucinations.
A federal court yesterday ruled against parents who sued a Massachusetts school district for punishing their son who used an artificial intelligence tool to complete an assignment.
Dale and Jennifer Harris sued Hingham High School officials and the School Committee and sought a preliminary injunction requiring the school to change their son’s grade and expunge the incident from his disciplinary record before he needs to submit college applications. The parents argued that there was no rule against using AI in the student handbook, but school officials said the student violated multiple policies.
The Harris’ motion for an injunction was rejected in an order issued yesterday from US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. US Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson found that school officials “have the better of the argument on both the facts and the law.”
“On the facts, there is nothing in the preliminary factual record to suggest that HHS officials were hasty in concluding that RNH [the Harris’ son, referred to by his initials] had cheated,” Levenson wrote. “Nor were the consequences Defendants imposed so heavy-handed as to exceed Defendants’ considerable discretion in such matters.”
Cheating isn’t a mistake, and a 65 is less than a slap on the wrist.
It’s telling them that cheating is perfectly OK.
I mean if it wasn’t against the rules, I don’t think they should ‘punish’ for it. Then again, I got in trouble for using AskJeeves and DogPile, so I’m a bit biased about new tech and the requirement to give proper instructions to kids (not everyone is great at reading between the lines).
It was explicitly against the rules.
But even if it somehow weren’t, it’s literally impossible for it to not be cheating. Anything that isn’t your own words is plagiarism.
Where was it against the rules and do you have proof beyond the weak assumptions made in the article? Aside from sources that didn’t exist, or citing their use of Grammerly (oh shit, I should cite MS word too because it suggested a synonym so my paper would be more ‘concise’ lol), I’m not seeing much proof. The teachers testimony was largely based on the fact one AI said the other paper had portions of AI generated content, and her feeling like 52 minutes on the final paper isn’t enough. I spend way less than 52 minutes on my final drafts because it was largely just copying/pasting shit from my rough drafts and maybe deciding to reword.
At the end of the day though, we are all making some leaps in our judgement. Allowing the use of AI at the school, then getting pissed at some bs being submitted is like allowing students to use calculators then blaming the student for not being able to show their long division.
The case has been posted all over for weeks, and multiple cited the district policy against AI.
It is literally impossible for using an LLM to write a portion of a paper not to constitute plagiarism. There is no exception. You didn’t write it if an AI did.
LLMs should not be allowed anywhere near a school. Using a calculator in an arithmetic class is absolutely comparable, though, for the exact opposite of the argument you’re making. The entire purpose is to learn to execute the math so you understand the math. If you can’t do it without a calculator, you did not learn the material. Using a calculator in a class that doesn’t allow them is cheating for a reason.
A high school student cheating on a paper is a mistake. High School is the time to make mistakes and allow for corrections. Making that mistake at the College level, that’s a zero. Making that mistake at the Employed level means you get fired.
The parents are completely in the wrong here and are teaching their child the wrong lesson. The parents are making an argument that doesn’t apply to high school students. Hell it arguably doesn’t apply at the College or Employee level, but that’s a conversation for another day.
The school is being lenient to give the student a place to grow from. The school being overly strict and beating down a student helps no one. The school and parents should be in alignment here. A middle ground might have been the ability to redo the assignment.
My only hope is that at this point, after the decision of the court, is that the student understands what they did wrong. I hope the parents do too, but the student is the important one here.
No, making that “mistake” at the college level is grounds for an expulsion. And a well deserved one.
A 0 isn’t and doesn’t resemble a punishment. It’s literally just the grade you earned. A 65 is better than you earned.
Failing the class automatically is the bare minimum to even qualify as a punishment. Letting the possibility of the student passing the class even exist is as flagrant of a statement in support of cheating as the teacher directly instructing a student on how to cheat.
The student was a Junior in high school, 16-17 years old. We don’t need to destroy them to get the message across. Being overly punitive is “an” option, but not one that I would support. Sure if the only options are fail the class or sue the school to overturn the grade, I choose fail the class. However I prefer an option in the middle.
Failing the class they cheated in isn’t destroying them. It’s not overly punitive.
It’s the absolute bare minimum that constitutes any consequences for their actions at all.
I think we’re at an agree to disagree point, but let’s continue with your proposal.
It they fail a class what’s next? Is there an opportunity to make it up within that year? Is summer school an option? Do they need to repeat their Junior year?
If they can make it up somehow within that year, I’m ok with that. If summer school is on the table, I’m willing to hear that out. If someone needs to repeat their entire Junior year? That seems overly punitive.
I don’t think cheating as a 16-17 year old warrants having to repeat a year. I think depending on what’s involved in summer school and depending on what the student has planned, it could be fair but it might be overkill.
I think a 16-17 year old kid deserves a fair chance to correct the mistake. Maybe I’m being overly generous, maybe he’s a whiny piece of shit. Maybe he’s just a kid who didn’t fully understand the technology he was using. This should be a conversation between parent, teacher and student.
Students have different schedules all the time. Failing classes is part of reality. There are ways to make back the time. None are pleasant, but he brought it entirely on himself by being a cheater.
Literally nothing short of failing the class can result in the student “correcting the mistake”. It’s actively rewarding extremely unacceptable behavior.
Yeah, we’re in an agree to disagree situation. I don’t think either of us have enough information. I’m not confident failing the class is needed. Obviously this going to court is too far, and I agree with the court le decision, but in terms of punishment I don’t feel failure of the class is needed, given the information available. I’m not against it given a more detailed write up if the incident, but I would need to see a lot more information.