High school defends staying silent while boys made AI nudes of 59 classmates

“The Attorney General’s office had the discretion and legal authority to refer this matter to the local police or conduct its own investigation,” Connaughton said. “That it did not use its investigative authority or refer the matter to the local police when armed with the same information available to Lancaster Country Day School, makes clear that the school acted properly and did not fail to fulfill any legal duty.” Ars could not reach the attorney general to comment, but a spokesperson told a local news site, Lancaster Online, that the office “does not investigate information provided in tips. Rather, the information is passed along to the relevant school and/or police to investigate the information provided.” Girls suing the school argued that at least 59 girls were traumatized by “an extended, catastrophic institutional failure.” They claimed that they “were forced to go to high school while ‘deepfake’ nude images of them were circulating within the school community,” and that appallingly, Lindsay Deibler-Wallace, assistant head of Upper School, took no action to protect them after telling parents that “boys will be boys.” The victims alleged that the school never suspended the students even after “the LCDS upper school was in a state of acute panic and disruption related to the AI-generated images.” Instead, the school allegedly discouraged girls from going to police, while withholding information from parents and obstructing efforts to investigate the distribution of AI-generated child sex abuse materials (CSAM), such as by refusing to respond to detectives seeking a yearbook photo for comparison. Two male students have since pleaded guilty to 59 felony counts of sexual abuse of children, and their victims are hoping the court will rule that LCDS was required to report the incident to police, both by law and by “reasonable institutional practice.” Ars could not reach the victims’ lawyer for comment. However, their lawsuit emphasized that on top of emotional harms, girls targeted were also “effectively deprived” of “equal access to the educational opportunities and benefits provided by LCDS.” They’ve further accused the school of violating Title IX by being “deliberately indifferent” to sexual harassment that was “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.” However, it’s unclear if that argument will hold up, since the students who made the images admitted to 59 counts of sexual abuse of a child, and the court will surely consider that. As punishment, the boys were ordered to “serve probation and perform 60 hours of community service each,” Lancaster Online reported. In their complaint, victims argued that “the tip described conduct constituting child sexual abuse” under state and federal laws—“specifically, the production and/or possession of child sexual abuse material involving minor students.” LCDS’s attorney told Ars that only the students are criminally liable for the images and that the court should agree to leave the school out of the fight since the only alleged connection is that the boys were their students. “What Student Plaintiffs do not allege, at any point in the Complaint, is that the images were shared in school, during school hours, or using school equipment or a school Internet connection,” LCDS’s filing said. “The sole nexus to LCDS in the Complaint is that the Student Plaintiffs and the harassers were all students of the school, but that is not enough to survive a motion to dismiss.” Although gaps in the law may help the school escape the AI nudes scandal, its motion to dismiss did suggest that the court may not grant every demand in their filing. On aiding and abetting claims, the motion to dismiss noted that case-law is “split,” which means an unfriendly judge could side with students and leave the school on the hook for at least some liability for negligence. However, if the judge doesn’t lean their way, LCDS argued that victims still can’t argue that the school knew the images existed or intentionally helped facilitate their spread, which the school thinks should be fatal. For victims, the school’s response coolly denying it could have intervened sooner is likely unsurprising but still jarring. Their complaint alleged that after it became clear that the AI nudes described in the tip were real, the school failed to “provide adequate support, counseling, and resources to the victims following the abuse,” allegedly negligently inflicting emotional distress at the time when girls felt most vulnerable walking the halls.