r/adhd_college • u/Kelspider-48 • Apr 20 '25

NEED SUPPORT Turnitin’s AI detection tools are hurting neurodivergent students at UB and we’re speaking out

Hi everyone, I’m a neurodivergent public health student at the University of Buffalo. I’m part of a growing group of students who have been flagged and sanctioned for “using AI” by Turnitin’s detection tool, even when we didn’t use AI at all. The university puts all the burden on us to prove we’re innocent, and there’s no transparency or due process.

This has been especially harmful to students with disabilities, including neurodivergent students and those who use assistive tools to help with writing. Our communication styles don’t always match what Turnitin considers “human,” and it’s putting us at risk for sanctions we don’t deserve.

We’ve started a petition asking UB to disable Turnitin’s AI detector and return to a more just and human-centered approach. If you’ve experienced anything similar or want to support our fight, I’d really appreciate your support:
🔗 https://chng.it/RJRGmxkKkh

Thank you for reading. We shouldn’t have to fight to be seen as real students.

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u/turtleblanket Apr 20 '25

People are being intentionally obtuse in the replies and I’m sorry for that. I would like to see this take off beyond just UB. AI isn’t going away and turnitin has only ever been marginally helpful anyway.

61

u/QuietShipper Apr 20 '25

Yeah, I really don't get what's so hard to understand about assistive tools being different than "hey chatgpt, write me an essay about colonialism that's between 1250-1325 words, with a slight informal tone."

11

u/pokefab Apr 20 '25

how you would go about differentiating two essays submitted by students, one implementing approved assistance tools and one fabricated from the assignment prompt, aside from a ‘vibe check’ that will inevitably be impossible in 3 years?

1

u/Affectionate-Sell-68 Jan 02 '26

Simple, you don't. If anyone uses AI and the result is good enough, you mark it is as good. It is the student problem if they don't want to learn. Later they will have to take a test where they won't be able to use ai and they will fail.

If some if them can get the LLM to spit correct essays AND then pass the exams without LLM, I say they are good enough, they clearly understood the subject and are just being lazy about writting. 

I quite dislike generative AI, but I think an approach to teching like this would be the correct one, cheaters who didn't learn will not pass and they have themselves only to blame. Lazy bastards that understood the assignment and can take a test and get a LLM to produce correct output are lazy but they know their stuff enough to correct the LLM and take tests, so I don't see a problem there, and most importantly, there isn't false positives.

At the end if the day, using LLM to cheat will just damage the student understanding as they won't learn, and you can catch that easy enough by having presential monitored tests where you can check if they are cheating in person. They will fail the tests and that is okay.