School did nothing wrong when it punished student for using AI, court rules
School did nothing wrong when it punished student for using AI, court rules
Student “indiscriminately copied and pasted text,” including AI hallucinations.
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."
-
He still got a fucking 65.
Not a 0. Not the automatic fail for the entire course he deserved. A 65 on that assignment he didn't do.
-
So he's a High School student and as High School students do, they fuck up. Ideally they are given a punishment, given the ability to learn from it, and grow. That's why they don't fail the whole course.
As for the 65, there is a thought that if you give a student a 0 then they are thrown into a hole from which they cannot escape. If there were only two assignments for the class and you received a 0 on the first and a 100 on the second you'd receive an average grade of 50 and fail the class. As a result why try on the second assignment if you fail no matter what. If the 0 is a 65 then you can still dig your way out and pass the class.
The goal is to give growing students a chance to recover. It's a fine line to walk.
-
Why do you even fail with a 50? Wouldn't that be a proper passing grade? After all, why would you have the entire part of the lower scale if it is never used?
Over here in Germany, in "high school" you also receive an "oral" grade. If you do your homework diligently and participate in class, this will cancel out any exam failure. For example, I failed a math exam due to lack of preparation and personal overestimation, getting a grade of four points of 15. Five points is the passing grade. My oral grade was 15 points though because I literally carried the class through the entire semester, so I still passed easily.
-
-
Jeez can you imagine being those parents?
-
Thankfully, as a human being, I cannot.
-
-
I find it hard to believe that there was no rule against plagiarism. If he copied from someplace else, no matter where, and didn't cite his source, it was plagiarism.