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Title: School Did Nothing Wrong When It Punished Student For Using AI, Court
Rules

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/11/21/23302...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: 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 (PDF) 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." "On the evidence
currently before the Court, I detect no wrongdoing by Defendants," Levenson
also wrote. "The manner in which RNH used Grammarly -- wholesale copying and
pasting of language directly into the draft script that he submitted --
powerfully supports Defendants' conclusion that RNH knew that he was using AI
in an impermissible fashion," Levenson wrote. While "the emergence of
generative AI may present some nuanced challenges for educators, the issue
here is not particularly nuanced, as there is no discernible pedagogical
purpose in prompting Grammarly (or any other AI tool) to generate a script,
regurgitating the output without citation, and claiming it as one's own
work," the order said. Levenson concluded with a quote from a 1988 Supreme
Court ruling that said the education of youth "is primarily the
responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials,
and not of federal judges." According to Levenson, "This case well
illustrates the good sense in that division of labor. The public interest
here weighs in favor of Defendants."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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