Years after the initial release of ChatGPT, students have developed a strong enough understanding of how they can’t use artificial intelligence in their studies. Having Claude write an entire essay, for instance, means inviting discipline.
However, AI tools are versatile. There are many AI-in-education use cases for which it’s not entirely clear whether a student is breaking the rules. Students are increasingly finding that their view of acceptable AI use can differ drastically from the views of their teachers, professors, and school administrators.
Where Joe or Jane Student might see a relatively harmless, or even totally acceptable, use of an AI resource, school employees might see grounds for suspension, expulsion, or other severe sanctions.
The LLF National Law Firm Student Defense Team works to help students and their schools find common ground. Actually, we fight for students, but that often means helping teachers and administrators see matters from the student’s perspective.
If you or your student is facing potentially severe penalties for a relatively innocuous instance of AI use, call the LLF National Law Firm Student Defense Team today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online. Let us explain our services, our value, and our plan for helping you.
The Line in the Sandbox: Schools Often Have Clear Expectations for AI Use
Some schools and individual professors do a commendable job in:
- Recognizing that artificial intelligence is a tempting tool for students
- Also acknowledging that AI resources can be used productively without a student crossing any ethical boundaries
- Creating nuanced policies clearly stating how students can and cannot use AI resources in their work
The ideal AI policy would refer to specific AI-powered resources. The policy would provide specific use cases about how a student might use the technology within the rules, and use cases showing how a student might cross the line in the sand demarcating ethical AI use.
To be clear, most schools do not have policies that come anywhere close to providing such detail. Some schools, even at this advanced stage of AI deployment, have no clear AI-specific policies at all.
When the Line Is Not So Clear: Cases Where Students Use AI in Good Faith, Only to Face Serious Discipline
Now that we have illustrated the ideal AI policy, which is clear, specific, and comprehensive, let’s check in with reality. A substantial portion of schools:
- Lack clear policies regarding how students can and cannot use artificial intelligence in their work
- Fail to clearly and consistently communicate their AI-specific policies and viewpoints to their students (37% said they were unaware whether their school had formal rules about AI use)
- Do not update their AI-specific policies often enough, or at all, as new technologies are released and new use cases emerge
- Fail to detail specific sanctions for violations of AI policies, which can cause shock when a student faces severe consequences for a transgression they believe to be slight
When schools lack coherent, well-communicated, up-to-date policies about how students should or should not use artificial intelligence, it creates several significant problems. One of those problems is that students are left to their own judgment and risk assessment, which are not always reliable decision-making apparatuses.
When Students Are Left to Make Their Own Judgment Calls, They’re Put in an Unfair Position
Young people want and need structure and guidance. While too much structure can become a problem, it’s generally preferable to have more instruction about AI resources than less.
The problems resulting from inadequate (or totally absent) AI-related academic policies are difficult to fit into a single list, but some of the issues that most immediately come to mind are:
- Failure to establish clear expectations: There are some exceptions, like PhD theses, in which students have uncommon autonomy to dictate the parameters of an assignment. For the most part, though, students are given clear instructions, goals, and metrics whenever they’re asked to do work. The same level of instruction and guardrails is necessary when instructing students on the use of AI resources.
- Placing a student in the unfair position of making judgment calls: When a student does not have clear expectations for their use of AI in their studies, they are forced to make their own judgment calls. Students’ judgment rarely aligns perfectly with that of their teachers and school administrators. Therefore, conflicts are inevitable when students are saddled with the burden of judging whether using AI is within or outside of their school’s behavioral guidelines.
- Not having a uniform process for addressing AI use that the school deems inappropriate: Schools don’t just need a clear framework for how students can or cannot use AI. A school should also have well-detailed, repeatable processes for responding to questionable uses of AI. This way, a student can understand the potential repercussions should they stray beyond acceptable AI use.
- Uneven, unpredictable discipline for students who use AI in a way the school deems unethical: The heart of this article is the issue of students facing disproportionate discipline for using artificial intelligence in their studies. It’s the onus of school employees to set a range of disciplinary outcomes in cases of prohibited AI use. Without such clear disciplinary outcomes, there will inevitably be conflict when schools issue discipline that the student believes is heavy-handed.
Time and again, we see schools flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to artificial intelligence. There is no excuse for this, and such off-the-cuff approaches ultimately lead to students suffering severe consequences they do not deserve.
Factors That Can Contribute to Major Penalties for Minor AI Use
Why might a student face consequences that alter the course of their life, for example, using an AI resource to summarize a lengthy academic paper as they conduct research?
There are a few potential reasons why schools issue extreme discipline for relatively innocuous instances of AI use, and those reasons include:
- Prior disciplinary issues: Schools often issue harsher discipline if a student has a previous history of breaking the rules (think: strike one, strike two, strike three). If a student has already been disciplined for academic misconduct, they can expect to face more serious consequences for subsequent violations of academic policies. This is not necessarily unreasonable, but schools frequently give too much weight to prior transgressions, leading to unjustifiably severe discipline for minor rule violations.
- False flags from AI detectors: Many schools currently rely on AI detectors to determine if a student has used artificial intelligence in their work, including in writing-intensive assignments. These detectors have well-documented flaws, including falsely identifying human-written work as AI-generated. When a school trusts a false flag as an accurate one, it can lead to the student facing steep penalties for an offense they did not commit. This is, in every case, a totally unjust outcome for the student.
- Misunderstandings about how the student used AI—or whether they used it at all: The ecosystem of AI-powered resources is diverse. Yet, a lack of curiosity and understanding has led many teachers and administrators to deem all AI resources as tools of cheating. When a school does not investigate precisely how a student used a specific AI resource—often by failing to allow the student to explain their actions—it can create an unfair perception that the student broke the rules.
- Bias against the student: The rise of powerful tools like ChatGPT has turned professors into investigators. Like investigators, professors often lead with the presumption that a student broke the rules, rather than granting the student the benefit of the doubt. This guilty-until-proven-innocent approach is a sort of bias that taints the investigative process and, too often, results in harsh, unjustified penalties suffered by the student.
In our experience, schools more often get it wrong than get it right. They do not conduct full-fledged, good-faith investigations. They don’t give students the floor to explain themselves. They dole out reputation-destroying discipline, apparently without a second thought.
These realities lead to one conclusion: A student accused of using AI to cut corners must fight with every available resource to defend their rights, clear their name, and avoid severe discipline.
The Cost of Schools Sanctioning Students for Forgivable (or Totally Justified) Use of Artificial Intelligence
Let’s take a moment to consider just how severely student discipline can alter the trajectory of a person’s life. Especially in cases where a student is suspended, expelled, or has their record publicly marred by discipline, that student might:
- Lose opportunities in higher education: As more and more students have pursued higher education over time, the admissions landscape has become almost unfathomably competitive. A disciplinary demerit on your record—especially a glaring one, like a suspension—can absolutely be the difference in whether a student is admitted to their school of choice or not. The same is true of current university students who may seek admission to Master’s, Doctoral, and professional programs.
- Lose out on future professional opportunities: Each step in your education can dictate future professional opportunities. If discipline prevents you from getting into a highly-regarded university or program, this can directly affect the trajectory of your professional life. In time, this may cost you substantial earning power, a fulfilling career, and quality of life.
- Have a target on their back for future discipline: When a student is stigmatized as untrustworthy, they may carry a target on their back. Teachers who previously regarded that student as ethical may now be hyper-vigilant towards them, possibly even falsely accusing them of misconduct based on the perception that the student is a rule-breaker.
- Suffer socially: Even a student’s peers may judge them if they are categorized as unethical. While this does not always happen, high-achieving students might exclude a peer from groups, clubs, and social circles if they believe the association might reflect poorly on them.
- Endure psychological and emotional difficulties: The compounding effects we’ve listed here can cause profound psychological and emotional damage. The disciplinary process alone can cause severe stress and uncertainty in a young person’s life, and the longer-range consequences of unfair discipline can be even more burdensome.
Now, you can truly understand just how important it is to fight against any discipline that you (or your student) may be facing.
How Schools Can Avoid Unfairly Punishing Students for Using AI Resources
In a fair and just world, school employees would utilize every available measure to avoid unfairly disciplining students. Those employees would:
- Take the time to research the specific AI-powered resource the student used
- Grant the student the opportunity to explain how they used, and did not use, the resource
- Carefully consider the student’s reputation, prior academic work, and character in determining the likelihood that they engaged in misconduct
- Seek and consider all available evidence and witness testimony before issuing any discipline
A fair approach would also grant the student the opportunity to make their case without limitations or conditions. This is the process we insist that schools take when we are representing students accused of AI-related misconduct.
The Voice of Reason: How the LLF National Law Firm Helps Students Accused of Misusing AI
Take this to heart: Any student accused of misconduct should never assume that their school will conduct a good-faith investigation. They should also never think that, at the end of the disciplinary process, their school’s representatives will make a fair and just decision.
Schools get it wrong. Often. The LLF National Law Firm Student Defense Team will fight to ensure your school gets it right by:
- Conducting our own intensive investigation into how you used (or did not use) an AI resource
- Documenting in as much detail as possible how your use of an AI resource was permissible (or, at least, a minor violation)
- Preparing you to respond to the allegations against you in a direct, detailed manner
- Imploring that your school handle your case reasonably, rather than handing down severe discipline that you do not deserve to suffer
Our team has delivered fair outcomes for many students. We are in a disorienting period in education, with artificial intelligence fundamentally altering how schools perceive students and handle disciplinary cases. You need all the best help you can get, and we want to provide that help.
Call the LLF National Law Firm Student Defense Team today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online. Don’t wait, as disciplinary proceedings can be upon you before you have time to blink, and we want to start helping you today.