BiasHigh
Yale Student Suspended and Given F After GPTZero Allegedly Misclassified Exam as AI-Generated
- Occurred
- Jun 11, 2024
- Published
- Jul 31, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
In 2024, Yale University reportedly used GPTZero as one factor in investigating whether Executive MBA student Thierry Rignol used AI on an exam. Rignol reportedly denied cheating and alleged the detector falsely classified his writing as AI-generated. Yale reportedly later suspended him for a year and gave him an F, while citing additional evidence and his conduct during the investigation. Rignol has challenged the process in federal court.
Developers
- GPTZero
- AI text detection system developers
Deployers
- Yale University
- Universities
- Professors
- Institutions of higher education
- Educational communities
Harmed parties
- University students
- Thierry Rignol
- Students
- Non-native English speakers
- Educational communities
Classification
Category confidence: 85%
Severity confidence: 80%
Rationale: AI detector falsely flagged student work leading to suspension and academic penalty, raising fairness and bias concerns.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8