Yale School of Management
A federal judge has denied a Yale Executive MBA student’s request to return to campus and graduate with his cohort, siding with Yale School of Management after it suspended the student for allegedly using generative AI to complete a final exam.
Thierry Rignol, a French national and entrepreneur based in Texas, also lost the right to sue anonymously and has since been named publicly.
Rignol filed a federal lawsuit in February accusing Yale of discrimination, due process violations, and other complaints after the alleged cheating incident in spring 2024. He sought an injunction that would allow him to graduate with his EMBA classmates in 2025 despite a one-year suspension and a failing grade in the course.
A FAILURE TO MAKE HIS CASE
District Judge Sarah Russell denied his motion on Monday (May 5), finding that Rignol failed to make his case.
“Rignol has not carried his burden of establishing that a break in studies until the start of the next academic year (in fall 2025) and continuing to have an F on his transcript will cause him irreparable harm,” the judge wrote.
Rignol, who founded a hospitality and real estate firm in Mexico, enrolled in SOM’s 22-month executive MBA program in July 2023 and was expecting to graduate this May.
However, in May 2024, he submitted a 30-page final exam for the “Sourcing and Managing Funds” course, one of the longest submissions in the class. Most were closer to 20 pages. A teaching assistant flagged it as potentially AI-generated. The course was set for open book but closed internet, so no use of AI tools, according to the course syllabus.
YALE: STUDENT IGNORED REQUESTS TO PROVIDE ORIGINAL DOCS
Faculty initially used ChatGPTZero to assess the work and found similarities between Rignol’s answers and responses generated by ChatGPT. They referred the case to the school’s Honor Committee.
Things spiraled from there.
Rignol claims that he was pressured by Yale administrators to falsely confess to AI use, with one dean allegedly suggesting he could face deportation. He also alleges that the Honor Committee proceeded with hearings without giving him access to key evidence, among other charges. His lawsuit claims that Yale’s own policies prohibit using tools like GPTZero due to their high false-positive rates, particularly for non-native English speakers.
Yale contends that Rignol ignored requests to submit the original Word or Pages document used to produce the exam PDF. He later said he had used Apple Pages but allegedly did not submit the original file until the day of his Honor Committee hearing in November, months after repeated requests. He also declined a follow-up meeting in which the committee asked him to bring his laptop for later that day. The committee did not initially rule on whether Rignol used AI. Instead, it sanctioned him for not being forthcoming, suspending him for one year.
A COMMITTEE RULING AGAINST
Rignol appealed his suspension to Deputy Dean Anjani Jain who subsequently asked the committee to reconvene and consider the AI violation itself. The committee concluded that Rignol did, in fact, violate exam rules by using AI, citing strong similarities between his answers and ChatGPT responses. It issued a mandatory F in the course.
In his filings, Rignol argued that facing a full-year suspension incentivizes false confessions from accused students, and that he was denied the ability to fully defend himself. He also argued that the school’s reliance on AI detection tools was flawed and that the punishment – a standalone suspension for not being forthcoming – was unprecedented at SOM.
The court disagreed.
“Continuing to serve the suspension does not prevent Rignol from listing merely his year of graduation rather than the number of years he took to earn a degree,” Judge Russell wrote, adding that any lost earnings “can be quantified and remedied with money damages” if his lawsuit is ultimately successful.
She noted that Rignol, unlike undergraduate plaintiffs in similar cases, was a “financially successful professional” who failed to identify a single concrete opportunity he would forfeit due to the suspension.
POTENTIAL FOR EMBARRASSMENT NOT ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY ANONYMITY, JUDGE SAYS
In a separate ruling on March 31, Russell also denied Rignol’s request to proceed under the pseudonym “John Doe,” finding that he failed to meet the legal standard to justify anonymity.
She emphasized that the potential for embarrassment or reputational harm – such as being publicly associated with an academic misconduct case – does not, by itself, override the public’s interest in open court proceedings.
“I take seriously Doe’s contention that he would be humiliated if he were to disclose that he was accused of academic misconduct,” she wrote. “But the potential for embarrassment or public humiliation does not, without more, justify a request for anonymity.”
Rignol’s lawsuit against Yale is ongoing and includes claims of breach of contract, discrimination, and emotional distress.
You can read Judge Russell’s ruling on anonymity here and her injunction denial here.
DON’T MISS: DENYING ALLEGED AI USE, STUDENT SUES YALE SOM OVER YEAR-LONG SUSPENSION and ACCEPTANCE RATES & YIELD AT THE TOP 100 U.S. MBA PROGRAMS
