College and university professors and programs can take diverse views on when and whether students may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their educational program studies. AI use among students is fair game until it comes to the academic program, where professors or their programs may sharply restrict student AI use to accomplish program aims. Violating the professor’s or program AI restrictions and using AI tools for unauthorized study assistance can result in disciplinary charges, suspension, and expulsion. If you face cheating charges alleging your unauthorized assistance from AI tools, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Student Defense Team for your best disciplinary outcome. Don’t let unauthorized academic discipline for AI assistance spoil your academic record and ambitions. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to retain our skilled and experienced representation for your best disciplinary result.
AI Tools for Higher Education Studies
Students, professors, and program officials in higher education are generally well aware of the availability of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to aid student studies. Those tools continue to proliferate and change, but include applications like:
- Grammarly to improve grammar and spelling;
- ChatGPT to answer specific questions on a wide range of topics;
- Semantic Scholar or Scite to navigate research searches and trails;
- Elicit using language models to craft answers to questions;
- Perplexity AI to synthesize answers to research questions;
- Gemini, formerly Bard, to respond to natural language queries;
- Claude to smooth, improve, and paraphrase writing;
- QuillBot to rephrase and summarize content;
- Consensus to extract and distill scientific research findings;
- Dimensions AI to complete multi-step research tasks.
You are certainly not alone or unusual if you use these or other AI tools in your higher education studies. A campus technology survey shows that nearly 90% of college and university students already use AI tools for study assistance. Another survey shows that over half of students use AI tools at least weekly, and a quarter of students use AI tools daily in their college and university studies. The most popular AI uses are for information searches, followed by grammar checks, document summaries, document paraphrasing, and creating paper first drafts. Other AI uses include study tools, note takers, quiz apps, explaining software, PDF analyzers, and rewriting tools. Yet despite the prevalence of AI use among students, more than half of the students are unsure about their use of AI tools and desire more training, while half of the students also believe their instructors need more AI training. AI is clearly an emerging tool and technology in higher education. We can help you with disciplinary charges arising out of your unauthorized AI use.
Prohibitions on AI Use for Academic Studies
One would think that with all the available AI study tools for higher education, that programs and professors would be more willing and adept at helping students with AI study tool use. However, academic programs and professors can be slow to change study methods and resources that, in their view, have worked well for generations. New AI tools mean new challenges, learning, and adaptation for professors, department chairs, and other academic personnel, many of whom lack the time, incentive, skills, or interest.
A simpler approach would be to ban AI tools from program studies. That way, the professor and program can avoid the AI challenge, while still ensuring a level playing field for all students. No AI. That’s still a common approach. An education chronicle reports that well over one-third of college professors haven’t used AI and don’t plan to start, while over two-thirds haven’t used AI in the classroom. Their three biggest reasons for AI resistance are other higher priorities, a lack of technology skill, and the absence of a department policy in support. Our attorneys understand the reasons why higher education professors and programs resist AI use among students. We also know how to address that resistance when defending unauthorized AI use disciplinary charges.
Where Students Find AI Assistance Prohibitions
It can matter to the defense of your AI unauthorized assistance disciplinary charges just where and how your professor or program prohibited your use of AI for academic studies and preparation. Students find AI permissions and prohibitions in various forms and places. Sometimes, a professor or department will include AI parameters stated clearly in a written course syllabus. Other times, though, the syllabus will say nothing about AI use. Instead, the department may have an AI use policy to which the professor may or may not refer students. In other instances, the professor may give oral instructions for or against AI use in one or more class sessions. Students absent from the class session in which the professor prohibits AI use may have to rely on second-hand student reports or may simply miss the prohibition. In other instances, teaching assistants and academic advisors may give opinions, advice, or instruction on AI prohibitions or permissions.
Our attorneys know how to take this uncertain mix of AI instructions into account in your defense of AI unauthorized assistance charges. Your personal experience of AI communications from professors, departments, advisors, assistants, and fellow students may determine the outcome of your charges, especially if we can show that you reasonably relied on reasonable instructions and advice from a responsible person. Let us help you gather the evidence and make that presentation.
Student Conduct Codes on Unauthorized Assistance
College and university programs govern student academic behavior through academic integrity policies and related honor codes, oaths, and commitments. Your higher education program very likely has one. See, for example, the University of Wisconsin Student Honor Code, holding students responsible “for the honest completion and representation of our work and respect for others’ academic endeavors.” Other student honors codes, like the one at the University of North Carolina, expressly define academic dishonesty or cheating to include unauthorized assistance. Our attorneys can help you determine the specific provisions of your higher education program’s academic integrity policy, as it relates to unauthorized assistance disciplinary charges.
Conduct Codes on Unauthorized AI Assistance
More colleges and universities are also expressly addressing a student’s unauthorized use of artificial intelligence (AI) in their academic studies. The University of Notre Dame is a prominent example. Its Undergraduate Academic Code of Honor includes AI recommendations for instructors stating explicitly that “unauthorized use of generative AI will be considered a violation of the Honor Code.” The University of Missouri is another example. The Office of Academic Integrity states expressly, “Students who use ChatGPT and similar tools on assignments without permission, or who use them in improper ways, are violating the academic integrity rules of the University.” We can help you confirm whether your school has a similarly specific anti-AI provision in its academic honor code. That determination may influence the strength and defense of your AI’s unauthorized assistance disciplinary charges. An express prohibition in the honor code may make such a charge more serious, while the absence of an express provision may introduce a degree of ambiguity or uncertainty that our attorneys can raise in your defense.
The Nature of AI Disciplinary Charges
As just shown, when a college or university charges a student with unauthorized use of AI in academic studies, the school usually does so under an honor code, academic integrity policy, or similar school policy or code. But a disciplinary charge is still only an allegation, not a finding of wrongdoing. Your school disciplinary officials may have based their charge against you on conjecture from a student relying not on personal observation but gossip or rumor. School officials may be on a proverbial fishing expedition to determine from you whether you will admit to AI misuse. Or they may have insubstantial evidence and inferences that you can readily contradict with our skilled help. The point is that you should neither ignore nor presumptively admit to the charges. Instead, seek our advice so that we can help you evaluate and investigate the charges before you take responsible defense action with our assistance.
Defending AI Unauthorized Assistance Charges
We may discover several substantive or procedural grounds on which to defend and defeat your AI unauthorized assistance charges. Depending on your specific circumstances, we may be able to assert any of the following potential defenses:
- you did not use AI tools, and the individual reporting your AI use is innocently mistaken;
- you did not use AI tools, and the individual reporting your AI use is conjecturing without a reliable foundation;
- you did not use AI tools, and the individual alleging your AI misuse is deliberately falsely accusing you of an ulterior motive;
- you did not use AI tools, and the individual alleging your AI misuse has mistaken your identity for another student who did misuse AI;
- you used AI tools but had the express permission of the professor, teaching assistant, advisor, department, or other responsible official;
- you used AI tools but not for the academic assignment for which your professor prohibited them;
- you used AI tools in an innocent violation of your professor’s instructions, about which you were reasonably unaware because of your absence or a similar anomaly;
- you used AI tools in careless but non-deliberate violation of your professor’s instructions, but you promptly stopped, corrected, and disclosed your careless misuse with appropriate apology and assurance of greater care and attention in the future;
- your violation of your professor’s AI prohibition was a one-time extraordinary event triggered by a severe mental lapse resulting from a medication reaction, illness, injury, family tragedy, or similar circumstances, since corrected and for which you have made appropriate amends;
- you have a clean record of discipline and strong academic skills reflected in your GPA and academic honors, such that your incidental misuse of AI was not to gain undue advantage and won’t be repeated;
- no harm resulted to any student, staff member, or school program from your AI misuse, due to your prompt admission and correction, and you have voluntarily completed remedial education and training to ensure your academic compliance in the future, removing the need for punitive sanctions.
School AI Misuse Disciplinary Procedures
Our attorneys also know the college or university administrative procedures to invoke to ensure that we have a full and fair opportunity to present the above defenses on your behalf. Public higher education institutions owe students constitutional due process, meaning fair notice and a fair hearing before an impartial decision maker, when pursuing disciplinary charges that could result in school suspension or expulsion. See, for example, the Student Conduct Process at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, offering accused students elaborate protective procedures.
We can appear on your behalf to invoke similar protective procedures at your college or university. We may first be able to arrange an early conciliation conference at which to present your exonerating and mitigating evidence, to argue for voluntary dismissal of the charges. We can then invoke your school’s formal hearing procedures if necessary, to present your testimony and exonerating witnesses and evidence. We can also appeal any adverse hearing decision if you have already lost your school hearing and seek court review if you have already lost appeals. If you have exhausted all avenues for relief without success, we may still be able to negotiate alternative special relief through your school’s general counsel’s office.
Premier Defense of AI Unauthorized Assistance Charges
If you face disciplinary charges at your college or university program alleging unauthorized assistance from artificial intelligence (AI) tools, retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Student Defense Team for your best disciplinary outcome. We have helped hundreds of students nationwide successfully defend against AI misuse and other disciplinary charges. Do not retain unqualified local criminal defense counsel. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for our highly qualified representation.