Article: When AI Usage in Schools Hits the Courts

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The immediate impact and controversy of generative AI, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, in the classroom became abundantly clear in a Massachusetts high school not long after the school year began. On October 8, 2024, a student at Hingham High School, referred to as RNH, and his parents, Dale and Jennifer Harris, in Hingham, MA, filed suit in US District Court in Massachusetts. The filing known as Case 1:24-cv-12437-PGL Document 7 names teachers, administrators, and the town of Hingham school committee as defendants in a civil action seeking an immediate injunction in the disciplinary action taken by a teacher in Hingham High School that punished RNH for using artificial intelligence in the execution of a homework assignment. (regmedia.co.uk)  

The civil lawsuit alleges that the teacher's decision to punish RNH for using AI in his homework assignment immediately impacted the student's future academic aspirations. The teacher's punishment included detention, lowering of the student's grade, blocking induction into the National Honors Society, and characterizing the use of artificial intelligence by the Plaintiff Student as "cheating" or classifying such use as an "academic integrity infraction" or "academic dishonesty." (regmedia.co.uk) According to reports, the student used AI to help in research and project planning but not writing a social studies project on the social actions of the basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (cbsnews.com) The suit argues that this strong discipline from the high school's administration for RHN's use of generative AI in completing a homework assignment is unwarranted, given that the student conduct handbook does not explicitly prohibit the use of AI at Hingham High. The suit characterizes these actions as arbitrary and capricious.

The Harrises argue that these unwarranted punishments negatively affect RNHs candidacy for the elite colleges to which he currently seeks admission. Chatbots powered by large language models excel in summarizing information, generating written text almost indistinguishable from average human writing, and answering diverse questions on a nearly infinite number of topics. At an earlier time, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) departments faced the introduction of the calculator, which would change the emphasis and breadth of STEM education. Before the 1970s, electronic calculators mainly consisted of large computers unavailable to the average student. However, electronics and solid-state circuitry advances made personal calculators for students possible and affordable. Over the years, teachers began to allow calculators in the classroom and eventually even in taking the SAT for college admissions. New technologies need time for integration, and AI is no different.

Across the country, in schools, colleges, and universities, faculty and administrators have exhibited a wide range of reactions to generative AI, from an outright ban on the use of chatbots by students and faculty to limited use of chatbots in certain circumstances and all the way to total acceptance of chatbots in the educational process. According to a survey conducted by EdWeek Research Center in February 2024, researchers found that 75% of school districts do not ban the use of chatbots, while another 20% allow faculty to use them but not the students. The remainder of the districts prohibited them altogether. (edweek.org) Given the universal availability of these tools, schools need to explicitly define how these tools can and cannot be used in each institution. Ambiguity followed by arbitrary discipline, as seen in the Hingham High case, underscores a lack of leadership and an unwillingness to look carefully at the power and potential of AI in the education and future work lives of all students.

Given the free availability of chatbots from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others, teachers and school administrations must now grapple with managing a tool that allows students to complete writing assignments in a few minutes that would traditionally have required hours or even days.

While the complete banning of chatbots for students implies that the school districts see no place for chatbots to play a role in student learning, nearly three-quarters of school districts continue to explore how this powerful new technology can help students learn and incorporate chatbots into the way that work and learn. Professors and administrators continue to try different approaches to using chatbots at the collegiate level. Yale University offered various examples of how their faculty have used chatbots in their classrooms and laboratories. (poorvucenter.yale.edu)

Chatbots' nearly immediate impact on education since their introduction in 2022 has challenged teachers and administrations to deal with such a powerful tool that can reduce the time it takes to write essays from day or hours to minutes. Chatbots can help a student give the impression of comprehending the subject matter and clearly organizing their thoughts through writing on the subject—the very essence of learning. Some school districts try to avoid this problem by banning chatbots, but others realize this powerful new tool will now occupy a permanent place in future schools and workplaces. Seeing the future of AI, prudent educators will carefully examine this new technology and find the best ways for it to help students learn in the future.

 Dr. Smith’s career in scientific and information research spans the areas of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, toxicology, and chemistry. He has published a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has worked over the past seventeen years developing advanced analytics, machine learning, and knowledge management tools to enable research and support high-level decision making. Tim completed his Ph.D. in Toxicology at Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington.

You can buy his book on Amazon in paperback and in kindle format here.