Student was punished for using AI—then his parents sued teacher and administrators
A school district in Massachusetts was sued by a student's parents after the boy was punished for using an artificial intelligence chatbot to complete an assignment. The lawsuit says the Hingham High School student handbook did not include a restriction on the use of AI.
"They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened," Jennifer Harris told WCVB. "They basically punished him for a rule that doesn't exist."
Jennifer and her husband, Dale, filed the lawsuit in Plymouth County Superior Court, and the case was then moved to US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Defendants include the superintendent, principal, a teacher, the history department head, and the Hingham School Committee.
The student is referred to by his initials, RNH. The lawsuit alleges violations of the student's civil rights, including "the Plaintiff Student's personal and property rights and liberty to acquire, possess, maintain and protect his rights to equal educational opportunity."
The defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint, filed last week, said RNH admitted "that he used an AI tool to generate ideas and shared that he also created portions of his notes and scripts using the AI tool, and described the specific prompt that he put into the chatbot. RNH unequivocally used another author's language and thoughts, be it a digital and artificial author, without express permission to do so. Furthermore, he did not cite to his use of AI in his notes, scripts or in the project he submitted."
