(NewsNation) — A Massachusetts history teacher, school district faculty and a local school committee are all facing legal action from parents of a teen accused of cheating.
The student used artificial intelligence to research and write an outline for a paper, according to the lawsuit obtained by multiple news outlets. Punishments from the school included a bad grade, detention and barred admission to the National Honor Society.
The first-of-its-kind lawsuit claims Hingham High School added an AI policy the year after the student was punished.
Court documents accuse the school of putting the teen at a disadvantage regarding Ivy League applications, claiming he was not breaking any existing school rules when it happened.
The parents, Jennifer and Dale Harris, told an ABC Boston affiliate that their son’s use of AI wasn’t plagiarism.
“They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened,” Jennifer Harris told the outlet.
“They basically punished him for a rule that doesn’t exist,” she added.
Peter Farrell, the family’s lawyer, echoed that sentiment in an interview with NBC News: “[AI is] underregulated, especially in a school setting. It is here to stay, it is ubiquitous, and it’s going to be a part of everyone’s everyday life in the very near future.”
“AI is not plagiarism. AI is an output from a machine,” he said.
According to public radio station WBUR‘s reporting, Farrell confirmed the student, who had a GPA higher than 4.0, was inducted into National Honor Society after the lawsuit was filed.
The suit looks to “correct” the student’s school record and could be a watershed case in education‘s AI regulation.