Professor attempts to fail students after falsely accusing them of using ChatGPT to cheat

A professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce attempted to fail all his students in an animal science class after he incorrectly concluded they used ChatGPT to complete their assignments, according to multiple reports. 

Jared Mumm sent an email to his class on Monday as students were finishing up for the semester, claiming he discovered they all used artificial intelligence on their essays, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone reported. 

A Reddit post of the alleged email says Mumm would be giving everyone an incomplete after he discovered students used “Chat GTP,” a misspelling of the technology he used several times. 

The professor says he ran the last three assignments all the students did through ChatGPT two times to ensure he knows they cheated.

“I will not grade chat Gpt s—,” Mumm allegedly said to one student in a screenshot provided to Post. 

Other plagiarism detection companies, such as the popular Turnitin, have introduced AI detection into their platforms, but ChatGPT is not capable of reliably detecting if an essay was written by itself. 

The school has said the incident had not led any students to fail or not be allowed to graduate, but at least one student came forward and said they used ChatGPT at other points in the class. 

“Jared Mumm, the class professor, is working individually with students regarding their last written assignments. Some students received a temporary grade of ‘X’ — which indicates ‘incomplete’ — to allow the professor and students time to determine whether AI was used to write their assignments and, if so, at what level,” the school said in a statement. 

Rolling Stone reports some students have already sent in evidence and timestamps from Google Documents to prove they wrote their own essays. 

“We’ve been through a lot to get these degrees,” one student told The Post. “The thought of my hard work not being acknowledged, and my character being questioned. … It just really frustrated me.”

The university added in its statement it is “developing policies to address the use or misuse of AI technology in the classroom.”

The Hill has reached out to Mumm for further comment.