From Harris v. Adams, decided Wednesday by Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson (D. Mass.):
In December 2023, school officials at Hingham High School ("HHS") determined that RNH and another student, both of whom were juniors at the time, had cheated on an AP U.S. History project by attempting to pass off, as their own work, material that they had taken from a generative artificial intelligence ("AI") application. Although students were permitted to use AI to brainstorm topics and identify sources, in this instance the students had indiscriminately copied and pasted text from the AI application, including citations to nonexistent books (i.e., AI hallucinations).
The students received failing grades on two parts of the multi-part project, but they were permitted to start from scratch, each working separately, to complete and submit the final project. By way of discipline, RNH was required to attend a Saturday detention, and in the spring of 2024, he was rejected from the school's National Honor Society, although he was ultimately permitted to reapply and has since been admitted. {RNH, a current senior at HHS, is described in the Complaint as a "three-sport varsity student-athlete with a high [GPA]" who is "in the top of his class." In addition to having a high GPA, RNH received a 1520 on the SAT and a perfect score on the ACT, putting him "in the top 1/4 of 1% of students taking the [ACT]." Plaintiffs report that RNH intends to apply early decision or early action to elite colleges and universities, such as Stanford University.}
Plaintiffs, RNH's parents, have sued HHS teachers and school officials, also naming the Hingham school committee as a defendant. Invoking the Due Process Clause …, they ask this Court to undo the consequences that school officials imposed. Plaintiffs contend that HHS failed adequately to inform RNH about its standards for academic honesty as they apply to the use of AI, that Defendants were unfair in concluding that RNH had violated the school's academic integrity policies, and that HHS imposed unduly harsh consequences. Plaintiffs ask the Court to expunge RNH's disciplinary record (i.e., the Saturday detention) and to raise his grade in AP U.S. History from a C-plus to a B.
