Australian University Under Fire for Fake AI Cheating Claims

Published Date : 9/10/2025 

An Australian university has faced significant backlash after accusing thousands of students of using artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat on assignments. The controversy has left many students feeling stressed and unfairly penalized. 

Madeleine was in the middle of her final-year university nursing placement and frantically applying for graduate jobs when her phone pinged. It was an email from a generic Australian Catholic University (ACU) address titled 'Academic Integrity Concern'. In it, the university accused her of using artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat on an assignment.

'It was already a stressful enough time of my life,' Madeleine told the ABC. 'And on top of that, I was getting emails from the academic misconduct board saying I needed to write out an explanation as to why I think this might have happened.'

It took six months for ACU to clear the 22-year-old of any wrongdoing, but by that point, she believes the damage was done. While the university investigated, Madeleine's academic transcript was marked 'results withheld'. Madeleine is convinced that the incomplete document was part of the reason she was not offered a graduate position.

'It was really difficult to then get into the field as a nurse because most places require you to have a grad year,' she said. 'I didn't know what to do. Do I go back and study? Do I just give up and do something that's not nursing in a hospital?'

ACU registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024, according to internal documents seen by the ABC. About 90 per cent of those referrals related to AI use. In a statement, deputy vice-chancellor Tania Broadley told the ABC those figures were 'substantially overstated'. She acknowledged ACU had recorded an 'increase in referrals for academic misconduct' last year but would not comment on the number of students who, like Madeleine, were wrongly accused of cheating.

'In 2024, approximately half of all confirmed breaches involved the unauthorised or undisclosed use of AI. This included assignments generated by AI, AI-produced references, and the use of AI tools to paraphrase or translate content,' Professor Broadley said. 'Around one-quarter of all referrals were dismissed following investigation, and any case where Turnitin's AI detection tool was the sole evidence was dismissed immediately.'

The ABC spoke to several ACU students issued AI-related infringements in the past year. Each said they were notified at the end of the semester, given little time to respond, and had to wait months for the university to conclude they had done nothing wrong. In the interim, they said, the onus was on them to prove their innocence and meet with university staff who knew 'little' about their degrees.

The ABC has seen emails from ACU academic integrity officers requesting students provide handwritten and typed notes and internet search histories to rule out AI use. Professor Broadley said this was no longer part of the university's practice. 'They're not police,' said a final-year ACU paramedic student wrongly accused of cheating with AI. The ABC has not identified the individual to protect their privacy as a current student.

'They don't have a search warrant to request your search history, but when [you're facing] the cost of having to repeat a unit, you just do what they want.' While the student produced dozens of pages of evidence, the university's case hinged on a single AI-generated report that highlighted problematic text. 'It's AI detecting AI and almost my entire essay was lit up in blue — 84 per cent of it supposedly written by AI,' the paramedic student said.

Students said any attempts to engage ACU and complain about its academic misconduct process were either ignored or dismissed. In a letter from ACU's complaints, conduct, and appeals team, seen by the ABC, one student was told that 10 weeks was 'well within the timeframe allowed' for the university to issue an academic infringement. It cited high volumes of referrals and insufficient staff — issues students told the ABC were brought up repeatedly in face-to-face meetings with staff to challenge their misconduct claims.

Professor Broadley acknowledged 'investigations were not always as timely as they should have been' and said 'significant improvements' had been made in the past 12 months. 'We regret the impact this had on some students,' she said.

For years, universities have relied on software to detect plagiarism, including the popular program Turnitin. In 2023, Turnitin added an AI detector to its toolkit. On its website, the company cautioned that AI reports 'may not always be accurate' and may 'misidentify' human and AI-generated text. 'It should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student,' the statement reads. Turnitin recommends 'further scrutiny and human judgement' to determine whether misconduct has occurred.

But email chains and documentation obtained by the ABC indicate ACU regularly relied on the report alone. When the paramedic student requested additional evidence, they were sent a copy of their original assessment — identical to the AI report, minus the highlighting. According to internal ACU documents, the university was aware of issues with the AI detector tool for more than a year before it scrapped it. ACU abandoned the Turnitin tool in March after finding it to be ineffective.

While ACU no longer uses Turnitin, frustration and anxiety over accusations of AI-related misconduct still feature prominently on student social media pages. 'Apparently I've used AI to create someone's heart rate … how am I meant to write someone's heart rate in a different way?' one student posted in September.

At ACU, students are not the only ones who say they are suffering. 'Staff are struggling to keep up,' ACU academic and National Tertiary Education Union vice-president Leah Kaufmann told the ABC. The ABC spoke to several academics who echoed Dr Kaufmann's sentiments. Despite limited knowledge and few resources, they said the university had made AI their problem.

'The buck stops with the person out the front of the class,' Dr Kaufmann said. 'But it shouldn't … how can [staff] even contemplate doing better in this space? It's changing all the time. We don't even know what it is.' She said AI literacy among academics was generally low, and the universities' AI policies were either non-existent or changing every semester. That meant the way academics defined cheating and detected and reacted to AI use was also constantly changing. And that was confusing for everyone.

'For staff and students … there is an opportunity to do the right thing, but it's not always clear what that is,' Dr Kaufmann said. Professor Broadley said this year, ACU introduced 'new modules on ethical use of AI, delivered to all staff and students'.

Across Australia, universities are grappling with AI-related misconduct. University of Sydney's Danny Liu told the ABC that banning AI was the wrong approach. 'Academics are teachers, not police,' the educational technology professor said. 'And yet the focus has always been control, restrict, detect. If a student knows how to use AI, that's useless.' 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is the main issue faced by students at ACU?

A: Students at ACU have been wrongly accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat on assignments, leading to stress, delayed graduations, and job application issues.

Q: How many cases of alleged academic misconduct did ACU register in 2024?

A: ACU registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024.

Q: What is ACU's stance on the accuracy of AI detection tools?

A: ACU acknowledged that the AI detection tool from Turnitin was not always accurate and has since abandoned its use.

Q: What steps has ACU taken to improve its academic misconduct process?

A: ACU has introduced new modules on ethical use of AI for both staff and students and made significant improvements to the investigation process.

Q: How are university staff and students feeling about the AI-related academic misconduct process?

A: Both staff and students are struggling with the constantly changing policies and the lack of clear guidelines on how to handle AI use in academic settings. 

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