evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Adelphi University — A New York Court Rules a Turnitin AI-Plagiarism Finding "Without Valid Basis"

United States of America · Garden City · See the United States of America profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 73% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A Nassau County judge ruled Adelphi University's Turnitin-based AI-plagiarism finding against student Orion Newby was made "without valid basis," ordering his record expunged after his family spent over $100,000 contesting it.

100,000+ USD
Family legal costs to overturn the finding
Adelphi University — A New York Court Rules a Turnitin AI-Plagiarism Finding "Without Valid Basis"

Details

Promoter
Adelphi University
Period
2024–2026
Keywords
higher education, academic integrity, AI detection, due process, disability rights

Context

In autumn 2024, Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, used Turnitin's AI-detection tool to flag freshman Orion Newby's World Civilizations paper as AI-generated, despite the student's autism, his account that a university writing tutor helped him write it, and independent human-authorship assessments from Grammarly and ZeroGPT.

Objectives

The university's stated aim was to enforce academic-integrity standards using AI-detection evidence, escalating to a possible expulsion after a second alleged incident.

Activities

The university proceeded with a misconduct finding based on the Turnitin flag, and the family spent more than $100,000 on legal representation to contest it before Nassau County Supreme Court.

Results

On 28 January 2026, Justice Randy Sue Marber ruled that Adelphi's determination was 'without valid basis and devoid of reason' and ordered the university to expunge the violation and any sanction from Newby's academic record.

Conclusions

The ruling is reported as a first-of-its-kind published judicial rebuke of an AI-detector-based misconduct finding and is already being cited in a separate, ongoing case at the University of Michigan involving similar due-process and disability-accommodation allegations.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Adelphi University academic-integrity/misconduct review process, Nassau County Supreme Court (Justice Randy Sue Marber), Family-retained legal counsel for Orion Newby

Conditions for success

  • Independent corroborating human-authorship assessments (Grammarly, ZeroGPT) submitted by the student
  • Willingness and financial capacity of the family to litigate (over $100,000 in legal costs)
  • Judicial review of the AI-detector-based finding for procedural validity

Common failure modes

  • Relying on a single AI-detection tool's flag as sole basis for a misconduct finding, without independent verification, produced a finding a court found 'without valid basis'
  • Disability accommodations were allegedly not adequately factored into the disciplinary process

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful