College and university students nationwide are discovering the power of artificial intelligence (AI) content creation tools to plagiarize or ghostwrite academic compositions. However, higher education programs and professors are also fully aware of student temptations to cheat on academic requirements by using generative AI tools, including AI composition tools to paraphrase, plagiarize, and ghostwrite assignments. If you find yourself caught up in the cat and mouse game of AI use and misuse, and you now face school disciplinary charges alleging that you misused AI to plagiarize or ghostwrite an academic paper or other assignment, you need our skilled defense representation to avoid school suspension, expulsion, or other crippling discipline. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team for your best disciplinary outcome to AI ghostwriting charges. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our skilled and experienced defense representation.
AI Content Creation Tools in Academics
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools fulfill a reasonably wide variety of academic or academic-related functions. They are obviously available as search engines for handy information on the widest variety of academic topics. Everyone, both inside and outside the academic environment, seems to use Google, YouTube, and similar apps to search for relevant information. Professors and academic programs would generally have few objections to AI search engine use for general student studies, although they might object strongly to, and outright prohibit, AI search engine use for exams, essay topics, and as a substitute for more traditional library or academic database research. AI grammar and spell checkers are also commonly used both inside and outside academia, with professors varying their opinions and instructions on their appropriate use.
But new generative AI content creation tools are another matter entirely. AI content creation tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, Adobe Express, Copy.ai, Jasper.ai, and Surfer SEO don't just direct students to information. In their best iterations, AI content creation and composition tools synthesize, arrange, and compose information into articulate and attractive prose, which may be the very skill that higher education programs are trying to teach students using or misusing those tools. That's not to say that AI content creation and composition tools have no role in higher education. To the contrary, AI content creators may more quickly and surely help students see, appreciate, and learn better composition skills. Those tools could even give students instant feedback on their own original compositions. Nonetheless, the temptation remains for students to misuse AI content creators and misrepresent AI products as their own original work. Let us help if you face those disciplinary charges.
AI Use Among Higher Education Students
Make no mistake: higher education professors and program directors know that, whether authorized or not, students are making ever greater use of AI, including AI content creators. One campus survey shows that almost 90% of higher education students use AI tools of some sort. As to AI content creator use, another campus survey shows that well over a third of students use AI tools to “summarize” documents, over a third of students use AI tools to “paraphrase” documents, and nearly a third of students use AI tools to create first drafts. Summarizing and paraphrasing documents may mean taking another's written work, whether the work of another student or an independent author, and turning it into something sufficiently different as to appear to be an original work. Creating a first draft is clearly exactly that: using an AI content creator to make at least a first attempt at some sort of academic paper or assignment. You are not alone if you face school issues over AI content creation relating to an academic assignment.
Potential Dishonesty of AI Content Creation
The data just cited provides a glimpse into the issue of AI cheating in higher education, including the misuse of generative AI to produce academic papers and assignments. One might assume that generative AI is increasing cheating. Yet Stanford University researchers suggest some caution in making that assumption, based on their study of high school students misusing ChatGPT. It may be more the case that a certain percentage of higher education students have always cheated and are still cheating, just using new AI methods.
But when facing AI content creator plagiarism or ghostwriting charges, you should clearly understand the potential dishonesty issue. It is not the mere use of generative AI tools that is necessarily dishonest. Rather, it is misrepresenting the generative AI product as one's own work which is clearly dishonest. That's the nature of plagiarism: to misrepresent another's work, in this case, a generative AI work, as one's own. That's also the nature of ghostwriting, to have another, in this case generative AI, do one's own work. Concealing the use of generative AI to produce drafts, summarize other documents, improve drafts, or otherwise alter and improve the student's work may also constitute academic dishonesty, especially when the program or professor has prohibited that AI use. Let our attorneys help you defend against any such disciplinary charges.
Academic Honor Codes on Plagiarism or Ghostwriting
Colleges and universities across the nation adopt academic integrity policies and honor codes prohibiting plagiarism, ghostwriting, and similar forms of unauthorized assistance. For example, the University of Michigan's Statement of Academic Integrity prohibits defining “cheating, collusion, misconduct, fabrication, and plagiarism” as serious academic offenses. See also the University of Alabama's Academic Misconduct Policy that names academic misconduct to include plagiarism, which is defined as representing any “work generated by someone else, represented as one's own.” For a closer example, Dartmouth College maintains an Academic Honor Policy that specifically prohibits “hiring a ghostwriter or purchasing pre-written essays or papers.”
These specific policies and many others like them do not expressly mention the prohibited use of generative AI tools to ghostwrite a paper to present as one's own. But these policies, especially a policy like the Dartmouth College one prohibiting ghostwriting and pre-written essays, come pretty close. You may sense the ambiguity of the above policies in that respect. Would generative AI misuse to ghostwrite a submitted paper constitute cheating or not? Our attorneys know how to construe ambiguities in school academic integrity policies in defense of the accused student. After all, academic policies should give fair notice and warning to students before they engage in conduct for which the school intends to issue disciplinary charges. How else are students to avoid those charges?
Academic Honor Codes on AI Ghostwriting
Other colleges and universities do better jobs of clearly stating their positions on generative AI use for submitted academic papers. The University of Notre Dame is a prime example. Its Statement on Generative AI and Academic Integrity gives clear guidance not only for students but also for professors. The Notre Dame Statement warns students that they must never “represent work they did not produce as their own, including work generated or materially modified by AI technology.” That prohibition is clear enough.
Yet the same University of Notre Dame Statement on Generative AI also recognizes the ambiguity that students inevitably face in such situations. The Statement acknowledges that professors may either promote or prohibit generative AI use, depending on their educational methods and goals. And the Statement further warns professors that they should be clear to students in their generative AI use instructions. Unfortunately, professors are often not so clear, leaving students to infer, guess, seek clarification, or simply proceed as they believe best, sometimes to face disciplinary charges. Once again, our attorneys know how to investigate, prove, and interpret such ambiguities in professor AI prohibitions and permissions, in defense of AI ghostwriting or plagiarism charges.
The Nature of AI Plagiarism or Ghostwriting Charges
When facing AI plagiarism or ghostwriting charges, you would do well to keep in mind the difference between a disciplinary charge and a disciplinary finding and sanction. A charge is only an allegation, not a finding foretelling a sanction. School disciplinary officials may base AI plagiarism or ghostwriting charges on second-hand conjecture, report, or rumor of your involvement in AI misuse. They may have no reliable evidence from a witness who observed your AI misuse. They may instead be fishing for evidence from you by your own mistaken admission or by others who may have reasons to make false or baseless reports, including to cover up their own wrongs or to retaliate against you for ulterior purposes. Don't ignore or give in to AI plagiarism or ghostwriting charges. Instead, get our help defending and defeating the charges.
Defenses to AI Plagiarism or Ghostwriting Charges
As the above discussion already suggests, our attorneys may be able to raise one or more of the following defenses to your AI plagiarism or ghostwriting charges, depending on your particular case facts and circumstances:
- you didn't use generative AI for any submitted assignment or paper, although you used it for other permissible purposes;
- another student used generative AI for a submitted assignment or paper, for whom the complaining witness mistakenly misidentified you;
- the complaining witness purposely made a false accusation against you to cover up the witness's own wrong or in retaliation to accomplish some other ulterior purpose;
- your professor or program indicated that your use of generative AI was permissible for the use you made of it, at the time you made that use, even if later contradicted by other instructions;
- your professor or program gave no clear instruction either way on your use of generative AI, and your use was consistent with other student practices for the same assignment or with the advice of a teaching assistant, advisor, or other reliable source;
- you innocently misunderstood your professor's instruction prohibiting your use of generative AI but promptly disclosed and corrected your misuse as soon as you understood the instruction;
- your inappropriate use of generative AI was due to an extraordinary exigent circumstances such as your severe illness, traumatic injury, mentally disturbing family tragedy, or similar circumstance, from which you have now recovered, and after which you acknowledged and corrected your misuse, which you will clearly not repeat;
- you have a strong academic record and no prior discipline, and your generative AI misuse did not involve any other student or cause any harm to any person or program;
- you have already completed remedial education and training, school or community service, and counseling or mentoring, while expressing appropriate regret and apology for your error, with authentic and reliable assurances of no future such error.
Disciplinary Procedures for AI Plagiarism Charges
The school procedures available to our attorneys to invoke in defense of your AI plagiarism or ghostwriting charges are also important to the successful outcome of your matter. You have a right to constitutional due process if your public higher education institution threatens you with school suspension or dismissal on disciplinary charges. See, for example, the University of Minnesota's Policy on Resolving Alleged Student Conduct Code Violations. That policy assures students of due process and fair treatment when facing disciplinary charges.
Due process in this context generally means that your school must give you fair notice of the disciplinary charges to the point that we are able to raise your appropriate defenses. Due process also requires your school to offer a formal hearing before an impartial decision maker, at which we can present your exonerating and mitigating evidence while challenging the school's incriminating allegations. Schools also routinely provide for appeals of adverse decisions. We can take your appeal or, if you have already lost all hearings and appeals, may be able to obtain special alternative relief through your school's general counsel's office.
Premier Defense for AI Composition Charges
If you face college or university charges alleging that you misused AI for composition or ghostwriting, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team for your best disciplinary outcome. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of students nationwide successfully defend AI and other disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our highly qualified representation.
