The family of a Hingham High School senior is suing school officials in federal court, alleging he was wrongly punished for using artificial intelligence while researching a history project, a penalty that kept him out of the National Honor Society and harmed his college prospects, according to legal filings.
According to the civil complaint, filed against the Hingham School Committee and several current and former school officials, the student teamed up last fall with a classmate on a social studies project, part of a long-running contest known as “National History Day.”
When the project was assigned, the student’s teacher, Susan Petrie, did not prohibit the use of AI for the “preparation and/or research” portion of the project, the lawsuit said. The student handbook at the time contained no references to AI, nor was the use of the technology described as cheating in the manual, it said.
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The student and his classmate used AI to prepare “the initial outline and research” for their project on NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s civil rights activism, the lawsuit said.
“The use of AI was permissible during this segment of the project as it was not prohibited,” the suit said.
A spokesperson for Hingham Public Schools declined to comment on the suit, citing the pending litigation and the student’s privacy.
The lawsuit said that the student and his classmate did not get beyond the initial segment of the project because Petrie accused them of using AI, “thus cheating” on the assignment.
Petrie and another defendant, history department head Andrew Hoey, told the students they would have to do new projects separately, without the use of AI, even though the students had “included citations and works cited in their written work,” said the complaint, which added that guidance “on how to cite the academic use of AI tools is changing rapidly.”
The student, referred to in court documents as R.N.H., ultimately received a D letter grade on the project, which harmed his grade point average and his college prospects, according to the complaint. Both students were also forced to attend a Saturday detention session.
The student “is competing with the highest level of applicants to admissions to elite colleges and universities, including Stanford University, on an early action or early decision basis when he otherwise had an maintained an exemplary grade point [average] exceeding 4.0,” according to the lawsuit, which described the teenager as a varsity athlete who received a perfect ACT score.
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In an Oct. 8 motion to dismiss the suit, lawyers for the school system said the student received a “relatively lenient and measured discipline for a serious infraction, using Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) on a project, amounting to something well less than a suspension. The discipline was consistent with the applicable Student Handbook.”
Petrie and Hoey didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The chair of the School Committee, Nancy Correnti, declined to comment “out of respect for the student’s privacy and due to the ongoing legal proceedings.”
According to the lawsuit, the student’s parents, Jennifer and Dale Harris, later met with Hoey and another official to voice their concerns about their son’s punishment, which included being barred from joining the National Honor Society.
“Hoey was oblivious and/or not forthcoming about the lasting and profound impact these actions were to have on [R.N.H.] and his classmate, including their future exclusion from National Honor Society to come later and the irreparable damage the conduct of these arbitrary and capricious acts would have” on his college applications, the lawsuit said.
Hoey repeatedly told the couple the sanctions weren’t meant to be punitive but rather serve as a “teachable moment,” the lawsuit said.
In March, the school’s National Honor Society faculty adviser, defendant Karen Shaw, indicated to the student and his classmate that their use of AI was “the most egregious” violation of academic honesty officials had seen in 16 years, the lawsuit said.
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The two students tried to explain to Shaw and other school officials that using AI isn’t considered plagiarism and that there’s substantial debate on the topic, according to the complaint.
The pair “did not take someone else’s work or ideas and pass them off as their own,” the complaint said, but instead used AI, “which generates and synthesizes new information and is not passing off another’s work as their own.”
Shaw didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In August, officials amended the student handbook to include a prohibition on AI use, the complaint said.
“At a minimum., [R.N.H.] will be hard-pressed to explain why he received a C+ for the year [in Social Studies] in a class where” he scored a 5, the highest mark, on the relevant Advanced Placement exam, the complaint stated.
On Oct. 22, a federal judge will hear oral arguments on the Harris’s motion for a preliminary injunction restoring their son’s Social Studies grade to a B, the grade he held before the D on the Abdul-Jabbar project, expunging any disciplinary record, entering an order retroactively inducting him into National Honor Society, and entering an order for the defendants to “undergo training” in AI use in the classroom, among other forms of relief.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.