Hopkins Revises Discipline as AI Dishonesty Cases Rise

Under the revised process, students involved in a first or minor instance of academic dishonesty may be asked to spend a day on campus addressing the incident. According to Head of School Matt Glendinning, this would take the form of “working on their own on the assignment in question, meeting with the teacher, and speaking with a school counselor about what led to the decision to cheat.” Glendinning said the student “will then work with their adviser to develop a plan for how to make amends for the harm caused to themselves and the Hopkins community and how to avoid making such a mistake in the future.”

Glendinning said repeated or major instances of dishonesty “will go before the Disciplinary Committee, where the outcome will likely be suspension, probation, or expulsion.” Glendinning said that “most colleges” ask about such disciplinary outcomes in their applications, “and students are expected to answer honestly.” He noted that college counselors “support students in that process.”

Because “students sometimes make mistakes and poor decisions,” Glendinning said, Hopkins’s response to first infractions is meant to be “supportive and educational.” If the behavior becomes “repeated and willful,” Glendinning said, “a stricter response is warranted, including reporting such violations to colleges.”

English Department Chair Joseph Addison estimated that, after spring break in 2025-26, AI-related academic dishonesty cases “were rising, like, sixfold.”

Assistant Head of School John Roberts said, “I had to chair more Discipline Committee hearings for academic dishonesty last year than I had ever  done before.” Roberts noted the number of hearings exceeded the total he had chaired over the previous “four or five years.” According to Roberts, the Hopkins community “needs to hit a reset, a big-time reset.”

Hopkins developed its current policy in response to the public launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Glendinning  said, “We felt it was important to clarify right away for  students that Hopkins expects them to do their own work.”

According to Glendinning, the school’s new,  broader statement of philosophy emphasizes that  “our primary responsibility is to help students develop their own intellectual skills, like reading, writing, critical thinking, computation, and creativity.” Glendinning noted that while knowing how to use AI effectively “is an important skill, applicable in many professions,” AI use shouldn’t “replace fundamental skill development, independent analysis, or original work.”

In August, the Razor administered an anonymous survey regarding academic dishonesty and AI use to students in grades 8-12, which yielded more than 60 responses. When asked about their own AI use, survey respondents’ answers varied. Sixty-three percent reported using AI for practice questions and review, 48% for explaining concepts and 28% for brainstorming, while 3% reported using it for writing or drafting. Thirty percent said they did not use AI for school.

Additionally, in open responses, several respondents made a distinction between using AI as a study aid and using it to complete work in violation of school policy. Zion Hu ’30 said, “Students are starting to use it  more as a resource such as using ChatGPT to help  study for their flashcards.” Juliette Watson ’30  noted, “I feel like people use it to make quizzes.”

Addison said that even seemingly legitimate uses of AI can quickly become “a slippery slope”: “You’re asking it for help on  your writing, and it gives you all these suggestions to help improve clarity and flow, and then suddenly it’s writing your paper for you." According to Addison, “We’ve just  seen so many cases where students start out with good intent, and then it just spirals.” In English and the humanities, Addison said, “There really is no appropriate usage of AI for schoolwork.”

Some students expressed concerns regarding AI use. Henry Russell ’28 said that “people are  definitely paying less attention in class.” Ishanvi Mo hapatra ’30 noted that some students use AI to “analyze passages for classes such as history and English.” Mohapatra argued that such use can lead to “a decline in students’ critical thinking abilities. It is truly detrimental to learning and forming perspectives in the real world.”

Jinghan Lu ’30 said that students “They tend to rely on it for generating ideas on projects if the teacher gives permission, and may go further sometimes.”

When asked why they thought students used AI for schoolwork, 79% of respondents cited time pressure or procrastination, 65% cited an intense workload, 60% said students believed they would not be caught, and 50% cited the normalization of AI use. Only 7% identified a “confusing or ambiguous policy” as a factor.

In open responses, students cited a number of causes for AI use among classmates. Hannah Anderson ’31 attributed student work avoidance to “not wanting to ask for help” or finding an assignment “boring.”

Administrators distinguished between using AI to outsource critical thinking and learning how to use the technology responsibly. Roberts said Hopkins isn’t “anti-AI,” calling it “malpractice” for Hopkins to allow “kids to graduate with no understanding of AI.” According to Roberts, “It’s real. It’s there. It’s powerful.” Glendinning said, “Right now, all schools are trying to find the right balance.”

Roberts said navigating AI at Hopkins will require collaboration between students and administration. “We have to get it just right,” he said. “It’s got to be a partnership.”