in this case, the ai should publish the cited hallucinated works on amazon to make it real.
not that it would help us, but the ai will have its bases covered.
See, there's stuff even geniuses dont know.
> John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British and US-American legal system and aside generally in the United Kingdom and the United States when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed.
I'd imagine that could lead to some difficulties when someone really named Jane Doe has to deal with some system that uses that name as a placeholder. Similar to the way people whose surname is Null sometimes run into problems because of poorly written computer systems.
And the kid was even offered a redo!
On the other hand, the school caved on National Honor Society after the parents filed. So maybe the best move would have been (tactically, not as a parent) to show the school the draft complaint but never file it.
Filing the lawsuit is an asymmetric bet:
- win, and increase college admissions odds
- lose, and be no worse off that without the suit
This kid should change his name, given his initials, high school and parents’ names are public record next to a four brain cell cheating attempt.
Perhaps a business idea?
College admissions, no. College students and colleagues and employers, being able to use a search engine, absolutely.
It’s easy to miss, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes up as “Hingham High School Harris” brings up the relevant info. Further, his parents suing may be a larger issue for a college than his behavior.
This guy needs to go to a JuCo that feeds into a decent state school — he’s screwed for competitive schools.
Zero effect on his college outcomes. Got into really good schools.
> win and increase college admissions odds + also gain funds for the parents
If I were in college admissions then I'd probably think twice about admitting the candidate with a widely reported history of trying to sue their school on frivolous grounds when things don't go their way.
I saw lots of students acting a bit like this but I was grateful that I could dedicate myself primarily to my schooling and took as much advantage as I could to learn as much as I could.
The credential gets used as a heuristic for the learning you do but if you show up and don't have and knowledge, then everything is harder and your labor more fruitless.
I know some people don't care and that there are degenerate workplaces but you'll still be left with having been a lot less useful in your life than you were capable of being.
Will it, though? Like if the college happens to know about this incident?
wouldn't this decrease? I wouldn't want to admit a litigious cheating student - whether won or lost. this was a pure money play by the parents
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69190839/harris-v-adams...
I was expecting the bad press coverage to hurt his college chances since there were several articles online about him getting kicked out for cheating and then suing.
Nope! Dude got into a really good school. He even ended up texting asking me for past essays I wrote to turn in as his own to his college classes.
And the kicker was he then transferred to one of the prestigious military academies that supposedly upholds honor and integrity.
So. There is almost zero downside for suing even if it gets you tons of negative publicity.
- The family potentially has the financial resources or possibly connections to 'make things happen'.
- Perhaps the student is especially charismatic and was able to somehow right the situation. Some people have that con-artist mindset where they're able to cheat/commit fraud through their life with seemingly minimal consequences.
- Perhaps they just got lucky and the administration didn't do their due diligence.
Are universities supposed to google every applicant?
I mean I haven't been in academia for a decade, but back when I was I certainly never browsed a 17-year-old girl's instagram before making an admission decision.
Instagram? No (although, wouldn't be surprised)... but doing a gut check with the school admin and looking at public records? Sure.
> He even ended up texting asking me for past essays I wrote to turn in as his own ...
> he then transferred to one of the prestigious military academies ...
>> There is almost zero downside for suing even if it gets you tons of negative publicity.
Sounds like the caveat here should be, "when your parents/family is connected".
I'm going out on a limb here, but if this is the viewpoint of the people who raised him, then I'm not surprised he cheated.
If this was my son and the facts were the same, he'd be grounded in addition to whatever consequence the school deems fit.
As judge said, "the emergence of generative AI may present some nuanced challenges for educators, the issue here is not particularly nuanced"
On the other hand, if you read some text first (be it ChatGPT's output, or a textbook) and then rephrase it yourself, then you are the author.
How much you have to rephrase? Is changing every other word with synonym enough? That's actually a gray area, and it depends on the teacher. Most teachers would expect you to at least change sentence structure. But in this case it's completely irrelevant, as we know the students did copy/paste.
I really don't see why you are trying to present ChatGPT like something special re plagiarism. Copying other's work is copying. Paying $10 to someone to do your homework and then copying their answer as-is is cheating. So is using ChatGPT yo do it for free.
If there is a spelling bee, but student is secretly using spellcheck on the phone, they are cheating.
If there is a math speed competition, but student is using a calculator on the phone, they are cheating.
If it's a calculus exam, but student is using Wolfram Alpha (or TI-89) to calculate integrals and derivatives, it is cheating.
If it's a written exam but student is using ChatGPT to write the text, it is cheating as well. Not that different from previous cases.
These are games no one in the real world is interested in playing.
If your position is correct, then I suppose asking another person to write an essay for you is in fact your writing as well. Which is absurd.
This pedantry is useless. Ask any person if an essay produced by AI was written by the person writing the prompt and I think a majority will say “no”. If AIs writing essays for you isn’t plagiarism, then nothing is.
Situation A - a person uses a tool. They are the author.
Situation B - a person contracts another person. They are not the author. The other person might be using a tool, but it doesn't matter.
This is not a theoretical debate. This is how the current legal framework works, and if you expect someone to behave differently, you have to be explicit. Change the law if you want the default to be different. This is how it works now.
> This pedantry is useless. Ask any person if an essay produced by AI was written by the person writing the prompt and I think a majority will say “no”.
I'm an expert in the field. I don't need to ask mainstream people about their sci-fi influenced opinions, they don't matter to me nor to the law. This is how it works, it's not magic, it's not scifi, it's not a person, it can't be an author and thus it can't be plagiarized by the user, nor the user can violate the tool's copyright by using the output.
It's a tool that authors can use to create their works, and even if all they did is push a single button, they are the author. Compare this to me applying a filter on a blank canvas to produce an abstract art wallpaper in Photoshop - am I the author or is Photoshop? Let me tell you, don't try to steal my work. I did it, not Photoshop, that was just a tool that made it easier for me.
Same with ChatGPT - this morning I used it to write an architectural proposal. It's my proposal, there is no way I somehow "plagiarized" something. Doesn't matter that I pushed like 50 buttons in total; it's my work, I am the author.
--
And if schools don't actively teach children to use this technology, they should be reformed. If this school was in my city, I'd vote for the party that will cancel it - for the extremely serious offense of letting the children think it's wrong to use tools. At least they should explain that the goal is elsewhere and why a particular tool shouldn't be used for that task. It's not like children will just know, you know.
This is just like when teachers at my own school told us that Wikipedia is a bad source and we can't use it because it can't be trusted. That's total bullshit, just be honest - this assignment is supposed to test your writing skills, not tool usage skills.
The classroom teacher was explicit in their expectations. The student did not follow the instructions. Did you RTFA?
> It's a tool that authors can use to create their works
This isn't about authorship or ownership. It doesn't matter whether the words are "yours" or not - that you keep making that a point of contention is a semantic sideshow. This isn't a commercial or artistic enterprise. If the student wants to publish their copy-pasted, error-ridden slop (or masterful slop!), then by all means, they can go for it.
Rather, this is a classroom, the goal is to learn, think, and demonstrate understanding. Copy-pasting responses from AI does not do this (even setting aside the explicit instructions not to to do so). Similarly, plagiarism isn't bad in high school because it hurts other authors, it's bad because it's a lazy end-run around the process of learning and thinking that undermines those goals and creates bad habits to avoid critical thinking.
If you simplify and trivialize everything to an extreme degree, then yes, you might have a point…
> Wikipedia is a bad source and we can't use it because it can't be trusted
No, but you still shouldn’t use it for anything besides research (i.e. you should be citing the sources the Wikipedia article is based on directly).
> just be honest - this assignment is supposed to test your writing skills,
Isn’t that more than perfectly obvious already?
A lot of times that's fine - after all, there are programmers who spend their careers never writing an original algorithm, and they could definitely use the help. And in a lot of cases an original architecture is actually a bad idea - stick to the boring technology, create your architecture proposal based on re-blending previous projects with a tiny bit of changes. Nothing wrong with that.
But school tries to be better than that (it does not always succeed, but it at least tries). That's why the students are taught how to multiply numbers by hand, and only then they are allowed calculators. And they must be taught how find their primary sources, before being allowed to use Wikipedia. And they must be taught how to write their thoughts in their words, before being allowed to ChatGPT.
Sure, some of them will go on and never multiply numbers by hand, nor ever read a primary source nor ever create a highly original proposal. That's fine and even expected. Still, the school aims high even if not everyone can get there.
If ChatGPT copies the wikipedia article, you are now in trouble. Your tool caused you to plagiarize and not even notice but that won't save you. Same if you include complete nonsense generated by your tool. Still your fault (although some lawyers have been getting away with it.)
If you copy the wikipedia article yourself, at least you know you cheated.
But equating the tool to the plagiarizing is absurd. What is possible is that perhaps the problem is now outperformed / overpowered by the tool. It may now be trivial to answer the problem. A few clicks?
But again it's long tradition for schools to outlaw some tools in the effort to teach something specific that the tool would replace: calculator out of bounds, or only basic calculator and no computer, no books, sliderule only, etc.
Schools need to adapt. Explain why a tool is forbidden - it will improve efficiency of learning if the kids know what is the purpose. Use different more fun method to teach mind skills, and teach overcoming problems using various always evolving and changing hi-tech tools - instead of the rigid lesson/homework style of today. Teach them that change is constant and that they need to adapt. This is not something theoretical - there are state sponsored schools operating in this way where I live. It's great.
This is unproductive and unenlightening pedantry.
That said, the kids are clearly defenseless in this situation, for blatant plagiarism as well as just being just being factually incorrect in their report.
Theoretically true, but irrelevant because this particular case isn't that.
It ain't that hard to connect the dots unless you're going out of your way to not connect the dots.
Here is a relevant quote from the TFA:
> 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).
(And re better rating: sadly making classes less useful usually improves the rating. I sure if there was a class where they were just watching cartoons, with super-simple quizzes at the end that everyone could answer, it'd have highest ratings from most students, as well as high ratings from many parents, and best scores on finals. Now, it might not work that hot in real world, but by that time the school would be long over...)
Why do you expect children to know math only after months of tries, but understand the perils of AI after hearing one sentence regulation? That's not going to help the kids. You need to spend time practicing using the tool with them, showing them the pitfalls in practice, and only after enough time you can start rating them.
The school handed them a gun and they're Pikachu surprised a kid got shot, and now they're blaming it on the kid that had it in hands - but the school is to blame. And it's certainly not newsworthy, or where is the math exam results article?
What you are describing might make sense for "ChatGPT class", but that wasn't it, that was AP History.
(And that's how schools work in general: in real life, no one integrates matrixes by hand; and yet calculus classes do not teach CAS systems or their perils)
Remember the "disciplinary action" here is giving the student a bad grade, with the opportunity to redo the assignment.
Are you seriously asserting they should've gotten a good grade for a paper that cites sources that don't exist? In an advanced placement class no less?
If anything they're getting of lighter than students who did a bad job on their own without using AI. I know I was never given a chance to redo a paper I phoned in.
“Clarity isn’t found in answers; it’s carved from the questions we dare to ask.” - ChatGPT, https://chatgpt.com/share/67439692-b098-8011-b1df-84d3761bba...
Courts aren’t stupid for the most part. Most of them are happy to interpret things in terms of what a ‘reasonable person’ would think, for better or worse. Right now, most reasonable people would say that using an LLM to do your work without disclosing it is in violation of the spirit of the student handbook.
I could fine tune an AI, and name it after myself, and put my own name at the top of the paper as an attribution, but no reasonable person would say that was following the spirit of the law if I turned that in as a class assignment.
Only someone trying to cheat would use the excuse that it wasn’t explicitly stated that AI was cheating.
This reminds me of the court case where they asked the court to define child pornography and they said “I can can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”
Imagine saying with a straight face that some pictures you have of a minor are fine because this particular pose, facial expression, and clothing wasn’t specifically designed child porn. It would instantly make you sound like a pedo, like he sounds like a cheater
If you’re referring to the famous statement from Justice Potter Stewart’s concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio, that comment was in reference to defining “hardcore pornography,” not child pornography.
Stewart's ruling was ridiculous: how is anyone supposed to know whether something is "pornographic" or not if it can just be determined by some judge arbitrarily and capriciously, and there's no objective standard whatsoever? They could just rule any picture of an unclothed person to be illegal, even if it's something medical in nature. Heck, they could even rule a medical diagram to be porn. Or anything they want, really.
It was subject to litigation at the time it was released and was upheld as not being obscene. But it continued to cause moral panics and was eventually taken out of print by the publisher.
But it was never banned and can still be found as a collector's item. And in the mid 70's it was completely normal to walk into a book store and see it on display.
Anyway, "pushing the rules" is so vague, and it could be done intelligently, ethically, or otherwise.
In this particular case the student copy-pasted AI output in an assignment and tried to pass it off as his own work. I mean, come on... the fact his went to court is just absurd
People who "push the rules" (I call this cheating, if I was playing a tabletop game with someone who did this, I would say they were cheating too) have an unfair advantage over the people who do follow the rules.
People who are good at pushing the rules and have some kind of knack for knowing which rules to push and how far, end up succeeding over the rule-followers, while the people who lack this talent and push the wrong rules, or push too far, end up failing somehow (and maybe in prison).
What facts? The facts are context dependent without identity. Revision time is meaningless. People still write rough drafts up on real paper, then copy the document in and put the final touches on it. How do you differentiate two processes, where part of the process is not technology driven, and not visible?
Is it right to say that revision time tracked by software is the whole time spent and correct in supporting AI use?
If it is a large project, it is often allowed to use previous material done in past assignments as components given the strict time limits. If the teacher verbally OK'ed this, that is explicit approval but how do you prove it after the fact? The court can only judge based on facts that are in evidence. How do you prove otherwise when there is no clear pattern of abuse? Academia has had decades to fine tune their legal teams for this and free money provided by you in the form of taxes.
The academic policy cited is indirectly self-referential. It both allows and disallows activity based on the teachers discretion of what constitutes explicit permission. There is also no internationally recognized standard for referencing AI derivative work (arbitrary).
This is also not uniquely defined, nor prescribes a valid process in adversarial environments, violating due process.
Academia has a long history of engaging in coercive behavior and violating due process. Many people working in academia view any investigation into an issue as creating a hostile work environment among co-workers. There is no duty to investigate, and in investigating the person involved (the chairperson or whatever), is creating a hostile work environment with co-workers. Its something they don't do unless forced, and when forced there is naturally a conflict of interest which violates due process. They are incentivized to seek to prove a false narrative where the investigation is not a hostile work environment (i.e. it was the student).
Vexatious process, lack of controls or agency to correct, and unclear instruction are structural elements that lead to "struggle sessions".
Struggle sessions are a circular Maoist thought reform practice based in torture (Maoism is a derivative of Marxism/Communism). It is all about psychologically torturing the subject without due process, accountability or defense, and forcing them to engage in the arbitrary circular process that breaks them.
The nature of corrupt systems are often that you have no choice but to cheat because the guidelines are designed to disadvantage certain people, and are arbitrary, self-referential, and circular, and act as a sieve/filter preventing future options. For example, about 20 years ago, Engineering fields required that you go through a course of physics (3 classes) as a roadblock. They had set up the notorious 3-question test, where individual students who were deemed acceptable by the professor were told prior to the test how to answer correctly. Everyone else failed, and it went like this, the first question answer was needed to solve the second, and the second for the third. Each question involved has a specific set of significant digits, and the instructions said follow the practices for significant digits. The trick which was arbitrary is in how you round between the problems. Causality factors into rounding error, and grading was instead based on an arbitrary process for rounding. In other words, only those who were told beforehand passed. If they followed the textbook process to reduce rounding error, they failed. There have been a number of similarly indirect derivative promoted by Teacher's Union representatives at various conferences over the years.
These things go to the core basis of the prussian model of education, which was focused only on creating loyal unthinking soldiers. The model we have today focuses on loyal unthinking workers. You get these types by breaking them down psychologically, in effect destroying the individual going through the process.
In my opinion, you are far too trusting of authority.
I'd highly suggest you read Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton to recognize these torture structures. They are everywhere and they have great impact, and damage the subject, but are subtle and hard to prove without having been exposed to it.
If you turn in work that isn’t yours and represent it as yours, it is plagiarism, whether accidental or intentional.
Delusion is inherently slothful and steeped in darkness and destructive outcomes, is that really something you want to be passing on to your children?
The indirection making this circular is based on the definition of work, ownership, and the concept of the originality of ideas. The identity of such is based in the question, "according to whom and by what measure?". Without knowing these no equal measure can be made one way or the other, and hence is arbitrary. Systems that end up determine important parts of your future shouldn't be arbitrary.
The definition you provide changes for each person you ask, and when it comes down to an authority, without defining such things, enforcement becomes arbitrary.
Everything would be plagiarism under that definition, and be arbitrary since not everyone is punished. All information processed originally comes from outside yourself, and not even adult professionals can get this right.
Is it really fair or reasonable to deprive children of their future opportunities over this? Is it fair or reasonable to destroy children's futures using this type of claim?
I'll pray you get what you need to become a good role-model for your children. As it stands, I don't think you actually have children.
Delusion that persists is a strong indicator of schizophrenia, I hope you aren't a schizophrenic parent. You can read more about how that impacts the children here: https://fherehab.com/learning/parent-schizophrenia
Poor kid.
>The incident occurred in December 2023 when RNH was a junior. The school determined that RNH and another student "had cheated on an AP US History project by attempting to pass off, as their own work, material that they had taken from a generative artificial intelligence ('AI') application," Levenson wrote. "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)."
Overall my html/css/javascript skills I feel now aren't as valuable as they were.
I guess in this instance I cheated too or is it that my developer peers haven't gotten into using GPT or they are more moral? As well maybe this is just the new normal....
No you were not cheating, you did what was expected from you. But you knew that.
The goal in school is to learn things. To learn to write you can't just copy an article from a paper and say it is yours. You have not learned.
At work, the goal is to get things done.
As well if one generation is using AI to get things done why wouldn't a younger generation do the same? Do as I say and not as I do.. that never has held well over time.
I think while we may think “they need to learn the subject first…” do they really? and if they do why? e.g. someone teaching their kid “web development” in soon-to-be 2025 is insane given the tools we have now… so while there are things for sure kids should learn it is not easy to figure out what those things actually are
"I need to create a dropdown for a website can you help me make it?"
And then I asked,
"How do I make what you wrote above work?"
It detailed the things one needs to do ..copy/paste each block of code in three separate notepad files and save each one accordingly (index.html, style.css and script.js) all in one folder. Once that's done double click on the index.html to run the dropdown.
It’s just a passing internet comment missing all the context, so what do I know.
And the saddest thing is, the fools think it'll work in their favor, and won't blowback with massive unintended consequences.
Glad the courts didn’t grant a similar “affluenza” ruling here. The student plagiarized, short and simple.
The article hints at a worry about college applications by the student. So perhaps this was an attempt to clean the student's slate of the cheating record. Still, I can't support the approach taken.
100% agree. Plus it diverts school resources -- in other words, taxpayer money -- to fight the court case, meaning they have less to spend on educating children which is what taxpayer's are funding.
The parents should be on the hook for the school's legal fees.
How do you get them to dive into a subject and actually learn about it?
Giving out purely take-home writing assignments with no in-class component (in an age where LLMs exist), is akin to giving out math assignments without a requirement to show your work (in an age where calculators exist).
Many years before LLMs were ever a thing, I recall being required to complete (and turn in) a lot of our research and outlining in class. A plain "go home and write about X topic" was not that common, out of fear of plagiarism.
Part of teaching is getting kids to learn why and how things are done, even if they can be done better/faster/cheaper with new technology or large scale industrial facilities. It's not easy, but I think it's the most important part of education: getting kids to understand the subjacent abstract ideas behind what they're doing, and learning that there's value in that understanding. Don't really want to dichotomize, but every other way kids will just become non-curious users of magic black boxes (with black boxes being computers, societal systems, buildings, infrastructure, supply chains, etc).
But don't copy/paste AI generated content in the same way that you don't copy/paste a chapter from a book and pass it off as your own.
However, if the punishment is excessively severe, then the punishment would be wrong.
The student still received a passing grade for the assignment despite some of the assignment being AI hallucinated text. From my experience, plagiarism is an automatic zero for the entire assignment or course, but there are tons of counterexamples when the teacher/professor doesn't want to deal with the academic integrity process.
That's a good point: in this particular case, the teacher of the course was subpoenaed to federal court and compelled to testify about their grading. Incredible burden, for someone else's problem.
The whole system is set up to disincentivize any effort to actually hold students accountable for cheating in a significant way (fail assignment, fail course, expulsion, etc.)
When we read about cases of students being held accountable it's generally the exception not the rule.
I guess so.
ETA: "Academic dishonesty" also covers things like falsifying data and willfully misattributing sources, which is a closer approximation to this case.
What I find ridiculous is the parents are suing over a C+ vs B grade and a detention on the record. Like where do you see your cheating kid going in life that you're going to waste your resources and the district resources on this?
Ob XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1414/
Sounds cool.
But then, my brother was already into D&D in the late 80s back when I was learning to read from the Commodore 64 user manual, so of course I'd think that :P
Mr. Munroe is falling victim to the unfortunate phenomenon where people believe their popularity means that their opinions outside of their areas of expertise are well-informed. Whether they can spell better or not, minds weaned on little chunks of text laced with memes and emoji are going to struggle with chapters, let alone full books.
Myself, I say that to equate the modern proclivity for tweets with a degradation of intellectual rigor is as fallacious as imagining that the concise elegance of Tacitus foretold a dulling of Roman wit. Or something like that.
Will they (kids these days) like the style of old classics? Of course not, just as few native english speakers alive today wish to speak (or write) in the style of Shakespeare — breaking a long thing up into tweet-sized chunks, that is simply style, no more relevant than choice of paragraph or sentence length.
But to dismiss a generation’s capacity for engagement with monumental works (be they Les Mis, The Decline and Fall etc., Shakespeare, Dickens, or any other) on the basis of their chosen tools of communication betrays not only an ignorance of how often communication has changed so far — when Edward Gibbon wrote the Decline and Fall, literacy in the UK was somehere around the 50% mark, but still the illiterates could watch plays and listen to tales — but also modern attention spans when we also have binge-watching of entire series of shows as a relatable get-to-know-you-better topic on dating apps.
I made dozens of dollars selling book reports and history papers to my fellow honors class peers. Every paper was a virtually unaltered copy & paste job from Microsoft Encarta. Copy, paste into word, format using some “fancy font”, add my “customers” name, date and class to the top… print! Boom. Somebody buys me lunch.
I mean how else was I gonna have time to write shitty Visual Basic programs that used every custom control I could download in order to play/pause the CDROM’s music stuff?
None of this is true.
Grades are just one part of the picture.
The folks who think a B is what kept them out of an elite school are just engaging in wishful thinking.
The number of people who get into elite schools like Harvard or Stanford with multiple Bs would surprise you.
Please stop perpetuating this myth.
Asians are not held to a different standard.
Anecdotally (with truck load of anecdotes), Asian-Americans (to be specific) frequently seem to be held to a widely-known standard that either they aren’t aware of or don’t believe in.
Note that this is not exclusive to Asian-Americans — plenty of upper-middle class white people fall into this category as well — but that was the group you mentioned.
I have made an open offer to HN, and it still holds:
If you show me the application of an Asian that you felt was held to a different standard for elite school admissions, then I will give you the reason why they most likely didn’t get in.
I personally know there is asian-american bias (not just asian-american…) in admissions at least one elite school via one of my best friends who works in admissions office.
Oh, interesting.
What is the specific bias they claim exists?
Fwiw, they did a fully body cavity search on Harvard admissions, and the best that they could come up with was describing an applicant (accurately) using race-based shorthand — something like “standard Asian reach applicant”, which (iirc) meant something like high grades, high standardized test scores… and almost nothing else. This is a complete nothing burger.
Note that this stereotype exists for a reason. It’s not exclusive to Asians, but it’s much more common with Asian applicants than other races.
Edited to add:
> that’s not much of an offer. one can easily always find (especially when specifically looking for it to prove a point) whatever it is they are looking for :)
Almost every time I’ve done this face-to-face, it wasn’t some subtle oversight — it was a glaring omission or weakness in the application.
The times that it wasn’t obvious, the person got into an elite school, just didn’t get into their elite school of choice, and that’s a different issue.
"good story" probably doesn't include being too uninterested to write your own answers despite parents so committed to you going to Stanford they're prepared to litigate to get you a B...
So true.
This kid is a persona non grata for elite schools at this point.
As I said in the other thread, his best bet is to go to a JuCo that feeds into a decent state school, and just lay low for two years.
He can go to an elite school for a graduate degree if he wants the club membership.
[0] https://www.popehat.com/p/an-anti-slapp-victory ("An Anti-SLAPP Victory")
what does this mean if the judge already ruled in the school's favor? parents will appeal?
On one hand, the school referenced academic honesty policy in their defense, but there are no international standards for referencing AI, many AI detection measures have false positives, and they both disallow and allow the same behavior seemingly based upon the teacher's discretion.
If you were a malign individual in a position of authority (i.e. the classic teacher being out to get a troublemaker), you could easily set up circumstances that are unprovable under these guidelines.
There is also a vested interest in academia to not create a hostile work environment, where there is no duty to investigate. They are all in it together. This has been an ongoing problem for academia for decades.
There were also several very prejudicial aspects referenced, such as the revision changes, but some people write their stuff out in paper first, and then copy what's written into a document from there. This is proof of nothing because its apples to oranges.
Finally, there are grievances made about lack of due process, and other arbitrary matters which are all too common in academia, but academia makes it very difficult to be caught in such matters short of recording every little thing, which may potentially be against the states laws.
For example, you may be given written instructions for an assignment that are unclear, and ask for clarification, and the teacher may say something contradictory. Should students be held accountable for a teacher lying verbally (if it happened)?
It is sad that it had to come down to court, but that is just how academia operates with free money from the government. They don't operate under a standard business loss function, nor do they get rid of teachers who don't perform once they reach permanent faculty status. The documentary waiting for superman really drives this home, and its only gotten worse since that documentary came out.
There are plenty of people in the comments who are just rabid against the parents, and that's largely caused by poor journalism seeking to rile people up into irrational fanatic fervor. These people didn't look at the details, they just hopped on the bandwagon.
Be rational, and realize that academia has been broken for decades, and what you read isn't necessarily the whole truth of the matter.
The parents had several valid points which went ignored because there is no smoking gun, and that is how corruption works in centralized systems, and indicates a rule by law rather than a rule of law.