A Massachusetts couple claims that their son’s high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.
An old and powerful force has entered the fraught debate over generative AI in schools: litigious parents angry that their child may not be accepted into a prestigious university.
In what appears to be the first case of its kind, at least in Massachusetts, a couple has sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project. Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments and that the punishment visited upon their son for using an AI tool—he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.
Yeah, I’m 100% with the school on this one.
OK, the parents are suing. And the district already filed a motion to dismiss.
Please understand, the world isn’t a nuts as the headlines tell us. Judges toss frivolous lawsuits all day long. We only hear about the nut cases because they’re nut cases. Money says this case is never heard.
Considering how many kids get into Ivy League schools purely because of who their parents are and/or how much money they donate, you’re most certainly right
I know, this stuff only gets published because it makes people mad enough to share it and leave comments.
But it works, I kinda hate these parents.
It’s honestly more impressive that the family even found lawyers to take the case. As someone who’s been dealing with a frightfully similar situation at work, entitled parents trying to use a lawsuit to “correct” a clear student error, we’ve had 4-5 different law firms reach out to us for details about the case, and every time they thank us for our time and refuse to pursue the case further because it’s clear the kid was in error.