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Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano criticized his school on Sunday for its slow response to a massive artificial intelligence (AI) cheating scandal among his students earlier this year.
In an op-ed for The Free Press, Serrano recounted that he announced that after a deadly shooting took place on campus in December, he opted to move his in-class midterm and final exam to an online, take-home format for the upcoming semester. As a result, he saw his course enrollment jump to 86 students, beating the course’s previous record of 30 students enrolled at one time.
Serrano reported that the average grade of the online midterm was 96, significantly higher than the previous years’ average of between 65 and 80. He also found that 40 students achieved a perfect score and detected answers that resembled responses provided by ChatGPT.
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As a result, he announced that the final exam would return to an in-person format and that the midterm scores would be declared void if they did not resemble the average final scores. After this decision, Serrano found that only 59 students took the final exam, leading to an average grade of 48.6 with a maximum score of 95 and minimum of zero.
Of the 27 students who dropped the course and the final exam, Serrano noted, 22 had received a perfect score on the midterm exam.
Despite providing his findings to Brown University’s Committee on the Academic Code and the campus paper, The Brown Daily Herald, which previously reported on campus-wide cheating in April, Serrano wrote that he did not receive any acknowledgment from the school regarding his evidence until the story went viral last month.
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“Academia is supposed to be one of our great beacons of truth,” Serrano wrote. “We cannot afford to tolerate or reinforce such appallingly low moral values among many of our best young minds. What happened in my class should be a lesson to all: In our new AI era, if you do not expose and punish cheating, you will encourage it. We must all have the strength to choose otherwise.”
In a comment to Fox News Digital, Brown University maintained that it has been “consistently responsive” to Serrano’s concerns regarding AI cheating.
“Multiple academic leaders from Brown were in touch in May 2026 with the professor to provide details about how the allegations raised could be formally adjudicated. On July 8, the professor provided the necessary details to the Standing Committee on the Academic Code to pursue this path toward resolution. With the required information now in hand, the committee is now moving forward according to its procedures,” the statement read.
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Serrano originally shared his story and evidence with El Pais on June 28. Three days after the story was published, he said he received contact from the Brown University committee on his claims, asking for more evidence. Serrano wrote that after his story was shared by Inside Higher Ed last week, the school committed to investigating his claims and the students involved.
“I am very grateful that they finally took this step. But there is no doubt in my mind that nothing would have happened if I had not decided to go public. Brown, like other schools, is struggling with how to integrate AI so that it advances rather than compromises the university’s mission,” Serrano wrote.
When reached for a comment by Fox News Digital, Serrano referred to his op-ed.
In his piece, Serrano addressed concerns of students using AI to cheat in classes, dismissing suggestions that they were using it to relieve pressure.
“A competitive environment has existed in society since the dawn of civilization,” Serrano wrote. “There is no plausible reason to use it as a cheap excuse for cheating. Moreover, my midterm exam gave students virtually unlimited time. They were not using AI as a last resort to handle immense pressure; they were engaging in a deliberate act of cheating — in some cases, to take their grade all the way to 100 percent.”
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He added, “Of course, we cannot be so naive as to think that people are never going to cheat when given the opportunity. Particularly these days, AI has dramatically reduced the difficulty of cheating, making it much easier to succumb to the temptation to do so. The only solution, then, is to impose the right incentives to influence behavior in a better direction.”
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