A recently filed lawsuit against Adelphi University accuses the New York college of violating a student’s rights by disciplining him over alleged AI use, prompting a debate over artificial intelligence false positives.
Orion Newby, 19, was accused by the university of using AI to write an essay for a world history class; he denies the allegations, calling them “completely false,” Newsday reported.
“The primary flaw in AI detection tools is that they are black boxes,” Jonathan Bailey, founder of CopyByte, told The College Fix in an interview. “With a traditional plagiarism analysis, a human can look at the report, analyze how the tool reached its conclusions, and either verify or dismiss the findings. That isn’t possible with AI detectors.”
Bailey, an experienced copyright and plagiarism consultant, said that “Relying on an AI detector alone is never a good idea when making a judgment.”
Newby’s “writing process is heavily influenced by his diagnosed learning and neurological disabilities, which include language and auditory processing disorders, as well as ADHD,” reported Neurozzio, a technology news website primarily on artificial intelligence.
“He has received specialized support for these conditions since he was two years old,” Neurozzio reported. “His family supports his claims, describing a diligent process involving handwritten notes and hours of work with tutors to refine his essays sentence by sentence.”
“The lawsuit argues that this intensive tutoring process, meant to help him overcome his disabilities, contributed to the polished writing style that was flagged as artificial.”
Adelphi’s director of communications told The College Fix the university would “not comment on pending litigation.” Newby’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comments from The Fix.
Bailey told The Fix that “students with learning differences are especially vulnerable to false results.” He said they “often have writing patterns that may seem out of the ordinary and may trigger AI detectors falsely.”
Newby’s professor had utilized the AI detection tool Turnitin, which concluded that one of Newby’s short essays was AI-generated. According to reporting from Newsday, the professor said the tool gave a result of “100% AI-generated.”
On its website, Turnitin warns the tool still carries a “small risk of false positives.”
Newby submitted the essay to multiple AI detection tools himself. All of them concluded it was not AI-generated, Newsday reported. In reviewing Newby’s appeal of his academic violation report, Adelphi did not consider Newby’s disabilities despite his claims of innocence, according to his lawsuit.
Ultimately, the university denied his appeal, and another academic violation could result in a suspension or expulsion, according to the university’s academic integrity policy.
AI use among college students has spiked, with almost 73 percent of students saying they use it more than they did last year, according to a 2025 AI in Education trends report released last month by the AI analysis site Copyleaks. Even selective universities with strict honor codes are not immune, with 90 percent of Harvard students reporting use of AI last year.
Bailey told The Fix that professors will need to rethink their current approach to AI detection.
“AI detectors can be helpful but are only a piece of the solution,” he said. “Having other pieces of evidence, such as a version history of the document [and] quizzing the student about the paper … can support a claim of plagiarism or unauthorized AI usage.”
“The main lesson is that each disciplinary case needs to be treated as if it could become a legal case. This means compiling evidence, ensuring due process and having good contacts with students.”
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