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When college students seek out lawyer Adrienne Hahn, they are often scared and desperate: An instructor has accused them of using artificial intelligence to cheat.
Suddenly, students are in a race to successfully defend themselves or risk the end of their college careers. In some cases, sanctions resulting from violations of academic integrity, such as semester-long suspensions, have devastating effects. After all, graduate schools, prospective employers, licensing boards, and the government often consider cheating disqualifying.
“Any of those consequences follow the student from that period until you negotiate in some way,” said Hahn, founder of the education law firm Hahn Legal Group, APC.
How to defend yourself against AI fraud charges
Although there is no count of how many American college students have faced AI fraud charges this academic year or the year before, law firms that specialize in education law are very busy handling their cases. Some of his clients are wealthy, study at the country’s most prestigious universities, and can afford legal representation.
Others come from ordinary backgrounds, are enrolled in state colleges, and have little financial resources. Hahn said the consequences could be especially devastating for students attending college on scholarship.
What all of these students have in common is the real fear that AI fraud allegations will destroy their futures before they even begin.
Allegations of AI fraud in school: Getting to the truth
Hahn’s company represents students throughout California. He said his volume of inquiries has skyrocketed in the last two years.
Many students accused of cheating did not actually use AI to complete assignments or tests, Hahn says, or did not realize that their use of AI violated a policy that was not clearly communicated.
Some students use AI, but share extenuating circumstances. Hahn, a student, represented incorporating AI into his classroom work at a moment of intense personal crisis: he had quit multiple jobs and both of his parents were experiencing health crises. The school administration was sympathetic to the situation and was spared highly punitive consequences after Hahn lobbied against it.
But there are also students who do not disclose adverse or harmful information about their AI use, only for Hahn’s team to discover it during the investigation process.
“Unless I know the truth, I can’t give you good advice,” she said. “I still have customers who lie to me. It’s a waste of their money and time.”
The cost of hiring representation varies depending on the case, but can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands when a student decides to get involved in the courts.
How a lawyer can help
At the LLF National Law Firm, more than 250 clients at any given time are working with attorneys on AI-related educational integrity violations, said Thomas Terrill, director of the firm’s National Education Defense Practice Group.
Terrill said AI-related fraud cases now make up a large portion of LLF National Law Firm’s litigation. Like clockwork, inquiries increase during midterms and final exams.
While lawyers cannot represent students in their school’s administrative hearings, Terrill said legal expertise can “level” an uneven playing field in which administrators hold tremendous power over students’ lives.
Mashable Trend Report
In Terrill’s experience, few schools attempt to objectively evaluate allegations of AI fraud. Yet, they have also had to deal with rushed investigations, limited access to evidence, and presuming student error based on a misunderstanding of how AI works.
“Many students feel that they are in the position of having to prove their innocence rather than placing the clear burden of proof on the institution,” Terrill said in an email.
The lawyers Mashable interviewed had strong opinions on this dynamic. Andrew Miltenberg, senior litigation partner at the law firm Nesenoff & Miltenberg, observed that the balance of power tilts toward the “faculty fiefdom” away from the student. Some professors get surprising leeway in making and judging allegations of AI fraud, he said.
Miltenberg described the AI programs relied upon to “check” for fraud or plagiarism as “primitive” and prone to false positives.
What advice do lawyers give to accused students?
Once a student is accused, they need a defense strategy.
LLF National Law Firm advises its clients to gather evidence of their authorship and work process, which can sometimes be corroborated by Google Docs or Microsoft Word history. Timestamps, outlines, notes and research materials are also important.
Terrill said the firm reviews metadata, compares a student’s writing samples, and looks at the instructor’s communications about the assignment in question.
Other factors, such as neurodivergence and being a non-native English speaker, also matter. According to Terrill, the AI detection tools that faculty often rely on may be mismarking the work of those students more often than that of their nonverbal, English-speaking peers.
If the allegation is based on the discovery of an AI detection tool, Terrill said it is important to know which program, as it could allow the student to challenge its credibility.
Preparing a Quick Timeline
Students don’t have much time to gather the necessary evidence, Miltenberg said.
This is because, in their experience, academic integrity cases come to light much more quickly than other misconduct or integrity cases, which can take months to investigate because they involve sexual discrimination, harassment or sexual assault.
“it happens boom Boom boom,” Miltenberg said of the AI fraud allegations.
A student might be charged on a Tuesday, meet with an administration official two days later, and be given an ultimatum that Friday. If they do not agree to a sanction, the charges will go to a hearing board, an institutional panel that reviews the case and decides the student’s fate.
“It moves really fast,” Miltenberg said. “So it doesn’t lend itself to someone getting their balance, which most students feel is a gut punch.”
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what does resolution look like
Hahn said administrators told students he later represented that they should not hire attorneys. He believes this is largely because university and college investigative offices are “completely overwhelmed” with AI fraud cases and want them resolved as quickly as possible. Of course, legal representation can escalate the process with requests for evidence etc.
Hahn described a case in which a student was accused of using AI in a mathematics assignment because he did not cite a specific formula. As a result the professor failed the student, a result Hahn managed to overturn.
In the few instances of AI use disclosed, Hahn and his team know administrators and can appeal to them for alternative approval before the hearing, so the student’s future will not be jeopardized. This may lead to stricter criteria for continuing their education, such as probation or a required medical leave of absence.
“Dismissals or failures – that will follow them for the rest of their lives,” he said. “If they can come back and finish their degree – it was a bad moment in their life, but they can get over it. People have bad moments in their lives.”
However, if the student has a history of cheating or academic integrity violations, leniency is not an option.
Why is suing complicated?
Miltenberg said lawsuits are a risky strategy because courts will not grant students anonymity in these cases. So suing the school means a student has to “out themselves” to “get justice,” he said. The resulting court documents will be publicly searchable and will include the name of the student in connection with the academic integrity violation.
Miltenberg said the way these cases are currently handled puts every student in potential limbo.
“There is no clear path right now in any institution,” he said, adding that any incident of fraud could trigger an investigation. Also, what that looks like is subjective to the faculty member or teaching assistant making the accusation.
Subject
artificial intelligence social good
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