A hot potato: Not for the first time, legal action is being brought against a school that punished a student for allegedly using AI. The individual in this case was expelled from the University of Minnesota last year over the accusations, which he says are untrue and a conspiracy concocted by his professors. Haishan Yang was working toward his second PhD from the University of Minnesota when he was expelled last year. It's alleged that he used artificial intelligence tools to write his essays.33-year-old Yang took a preliminary exam remotely while travelling to Morocco during the summer of 2024.The exam, which doctoral students must pass to start their dissertation, involved writing three essays over the course of eight hours. He was allowed to use notes, reports, and books, but AI tools were not allowed.All four faculty graders of Yang's exam expressed concerns that it was not written by the student. They highlighted answers that seemed irrelevant or were not covered in class, and the use of acronyms not commonly used in the field but regularly appear in answers generated by ChatGPT.Two instructors gave the essay questions to ChatGPT to compare its output with Yang's answers. They found that the AI's formatting, structure, language, and content were extremely similar."I was struck by the similarities between the two that seemed extremely unlikely to be coincidental," wrote Professor Peter Huckfeldt in a letter to the hearing committee. // Related StoriesYang says this is likely because OpenAI's tool was using the same reference material he was. He also claims the professors edited the ChatGPT responses to make them appear more like his answers.The panel also criticized Yang for not including many citations and having "inconsistencies" in his testimony.Yang claims that methods used to detect AI use are unreliable and biased, particularly against people whose first language is not English. The student grew up speaking Southern Min, a Chinese dialect, writes MPR News.Yang's academic advisor, Bryan Dowd, called him "the best-read student" he had ever encountered. "In over four decadesI never have seen this level of animosity directed at a student. I have no explanation for that animosity," Dowd said.Yang says the animosity stems from his time as a research assistant, when his financial support was cut off by the university for what it claimed was poor performance and disparaging behavior. He also claims that the graduate director told him he should simply quit. Yang appealed the decision and won. The school apologized and agreed to restart his funding if he didn't sue.The professors say Yang had used AI to complete his work before. A year before the exam, he submitted a homework assignment that included the text, "re write it (sic), make it more casual, like a foreign student write but no ai." He claims to have used AI only to check his English, not to generate answers. He was given a warning but no punishment for the incident.The university denied Yang's appeal. He has since filed state and federal lawsuits against his professor and the University of Minnesota. He is seeking $575,000 in damages in the federal lawsuit and $760,000 in the defamation case. Yang also wants his expulsion reversed and a public apology. The federal lawsuit includes a request for $200,000 from the university "to deter future procedural violations and uphold fairness in disciplinary proceedings."Yang said he used ChatGPT to write the lawsuit filings.Back in October, the parents of a student who was punished for using a chatbot to complete an assignment sued the school, claiming it hurt his college chances.