Brown University prof says school slow to address AI cheating scandal

Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano criticized his school on Sunday for its slow response to the massive artificial intelligence (AI) cheating scandal among its students earlier this year.

In his column for The Free Press, Serrano explained that after a fatal shooting on campus in December, he announced that he had chosen to move in-class midterm and final exams to an online, take-home format for the upcoming semester. As a result, the course saw its enrollment rise to 86 students, breaking the course’s previous record of 30 students enrolled simultaneously.

Serrano reported an average online midterm score of 96, which was significantly higher than previous years’ average of 65 to 80. It also found that 40 students received a perfect score and identified responses that were similar to those provided by ChatGPT.

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As a result, he announced that the final exam will return to a face-to-face format and will be declared invalid if midterm scores do not resemble the average final scores. Following this decision, Serrano found that only 59 students took the final exam, receiving an average score of 48.6, a maximum of 95 and a minimum of zero.

Serrano noted that 22 of the 27 students who dropped the course and the final exam received perfect scores on the midterm exam.

Although he presented his findings to Brown University’s Academic Rules Committee and campus document Brown Daily HeraldSerrano, who previously reported campus-wide cheating in April, wrote that he did not receive any acknowledgment from the school about his evidence until the story went viral last month.

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Students are using ChatGPT to earn perfect scores on online exams, Serrano wrote in a column for The Free Press. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

“The academy needs to be one of the greatest lights of truth” serrano wrote. “We cannot afford to tolerate or reinforce such appallingly low moral values ​​among so many of our best young minds. What happened in my classroom should be a lesson to everyone: In our new age of artificial intelligence, if you do not expose and punish cheating, you will encourage it. We must all have the power to choose otherwise.”

In a comment to Fox News Digital, Brown University maintained that it had “consistently responded” to Serrano’s concerns about AI cheating.

“Multiple academic leaders from Brown contacted the professor in May 2026 to provide details on how the allegations raised could be formally adjudicated. On July 8, the professor provided the Standing Committee on Academic Rules with the necessary details to pursue this path to resolution. With the necessary information now available, the committee now proceeds according to its own procedures,” the statement said.

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Serrano claimed that Brown University would not have responded to her concerns if her story had not been made public. (Getty Images)

Serrano initially shared her story and evidence with El País On June 28. Three days after the story was published, he said he contacted a Brown University committee about his allegations and asked for more evidence. Serrano wrote after her story was shared: by Inside Higher Ed Last week, the school decided to investigate her allegations and the students involved.

“I’m so grateful that they finally took this step. But I have no doubt that nothing would have happened if I hadn’t decided to go public. Like other schools, Brown is struggling with how to integrate AI in a way that advances the university’s mission rather than jeopardizing it,” Serrano wrote.

When asked for comment from Fox News Digital, Serrano referred to the column.

In his article, Serrano addressed concerns that students were using artificial intelligence to cheat in classes and rejected suggestions that they were using it to relieve pressure.

“There has been a competitive environment in society since the dawn of civilization,” Serrano wrote. “There’s no plausible reason to use this as a cheap excuse to cheat. Moreover, my midterm exam gave students almost unlimited time. They weren’t using AI as a last resort to cope with intense pressure; in some cases, they were engaging in deliberate cheating to get their grades up to 100 percent.”

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He added: “Of course, we can’t be so naive as to think that people would never cheat if given the opportunity. Especially these days, AI has significantly reduced the difficulty of cheating and made it much easier to succumb to the temptation. So the only solution is to impose the right incentives to influence behavior for the better.”