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| Headline in "The Hill": AI read to hit its stride in schools in 2025 No, I am not linking to the article. |
Sometimes it is a consolation rather than a problem that education tends to operate as a pendulum. Anyone around schools for any length of time knows that much that comes into schools being trumpeted as the next big thing goes away.
Something that you may have missed is the judge in the Hingham High AI-cheating case denied the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction in a decision you can read here or can read Benjamin Riley having some fun with here. A preliminary injunction--my I am not a lawyer explanation!--is based on the likelihood of the judge deciding the case in that side's favor, and in this case, the judge's answer was "not at all likely." As the decision says:
Despite Plaintiffs’ strenuous efforts to frame this case as one of “first impression in the Commonwealth” about how to deal with an emerging technology, Court need not parse the terms of the Handbook as if it were a criminal statute27 to decide whether Grammarly can reasonably be considered an “author” as the term is used in the Handbook. The Supreme Court has expressly eschewed such an approach. See Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403, 478 U.S. at 686 (“Given the school’s need to be able to impose disciplinary sanctions for a wide range of unanticipated conduct disruptive of the educational process, the school disciplinary rules need not be as detailed as a criminal code which imposes criminal sanctions.”).
In any event, the Handbook defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own work.” Docket No. 24-1, at 25. Even if I were to credit RNH’s testimony that he was “confused” about what uses of AI were permitted, it strains credulity to suppose that RNH actually believed that copying and pasting, without attribution, text that had been generated by Grammarly was consistent with any standard of academic honesty.
I'll only add: no appropriate attribution is possible, as the actual sources of such generated text are unknowable.
It's a useful decision to read.
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While I'd known of the courts' general reluctance to look over the shoulders of school officials (within bounds), I'd not previously read either of the closing citations:
As the Supreme Court has noted:
It is not the role of the federal courts to set aside decisions of school administrators which the court may view as lacking a basis in wisdom or compassion. Public high school students do have substantive and procedural rights while at school. But § 1983 does not extend the right to relitigate in federal court evidentiary questions arising in school disciplinary proceedings or the proper construction of school regulations. The system of public education that has evolved in this Nation relies necessarily upon the discretion and judgment of school administrators and school board members and § 1983 was not intended to be a vehicle for federal court correction of errors in the exercise of that discretion which do not rise to the level of violations of specific constitutional guarantees.
Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 326 (1975) (citations omitted).
In sum, “the Nation’s youth is primarily the responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of federal judges.” Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 273 (1988). This case well illustrates the good sense in that division of labor.
