The students won $10,000 from a school pitch competition for an AI product, but Emory University then sought to expel one founder and suspend another.
JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images
Emory University students created an artificial intelligence-driven study tool last year.
Professors and students praised the program, called Eightball. The student newspaper wrote about it. The founders won a pitch competition sponsored by the school and took home $10,000. The business school highlighted them on social media.
Then at least two of the students were suspended for Eightball, which they'd already scrapped. Emory said the duo violated the school's honor code, because students could use Eightball in ways that would breach it.
Junior history major Benjamin Craver, who led marketing for the platform, sued the university on Friday. His complaint said there is no evidence any students used Eightball improperly, including to cheat.
The case highlights the tensions between universities eager to foster young entrepreneurs and administrative rules that haven't caught up to new tech.
Emory did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside normal working hours.
Craver, who said he had never been in trouble at Emory, partnered with a student developer last year to promote Eightball. The premise was simple: students could upload materials to a private server not accessible to other users, then use AI to generate study materials.
Craver and his cofounders won a business school pitch competition last year, and the business school's website spotlighted them — until this week, when the page was removed, per a comparison of the archived page.
Eightball's founders marketed the program as a study tool — "not to do their homework or be a cheat sheet," said one founder on the now-defunct business school page.
But in October, Emory told the developer that he may have violated the honor code, per Craver's lawsuit. In November, Emory told Craver that it was weighing five honor code violations for him. Craver said he asked the developer to immediately shut Eightball down, which the developer did.
Craver was put on disciplinary probation for a semester by the Office of Student Conduct and he submitted a formal written apology. At a January honor council hearing, a Spanish professor and four undergraduates weighed a bigger punishment for Craver.
Writing that the founders built Eightball with the intent to cheat, they recommended a one-year suspension for Craver and expulsion for the developer, per the lawsuit.
They heard no evidence Eightball was used for cheating, Craver said in the lawsuit.
Craver was ultimately suspended for a semester and summer, while the developer's yearlong suspension was later reduced to a semester, he said in the lawsuit.
While Craver was preparing an appeal, Emory's venture program reached out, asking if he'd like to participate in an accelerator for Eightball.
Craver lost his appeal last week. His lawsuit said the disciplinary record could stymie his plans to apply to law school: "Emory willfully and self-servingly deviated from proper Honor Code procedures to make a public example out of Ben."
Craver is seeking a jury trial and damages of at least $75,000, per the complaint.
