A Louisiana school board has upheld the expulsion of a 13-year-old girl for hitting a boy who shared AI-generated nude images of her—a case that has sparked outrage and raised questions about how schools handle deepfakes. Lawyers for the family say the eighth-grader reported the images to staff at Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux on Aug. 26, saying she was being bullied, but was told she could not call her parents, per NOLA.com. On the bus ride home that day, several boys were passing around the images and the girl struck one of them, resulting in her expulsion. Her family then appealed the decision.
During a school board meeting last week, the Lafourche Parish school board upheld the expulsion, but allowed the girl to return to school on Monday on probationary status. She had then been out of school for more than two months. When a student is expelled, they typically return to campus on a probationary basis after 45 days but are barred from sports and extracurricular activities for another 45 days. Some board members defended the expulsion, saying violence is never justified, and noting the girl could have been charged with assault. But the girl's father said the punishment was too harsh for a student who had never been in trouble before and argued the incident could have been prevented if the school had acted quickly.
"Not only did they not put a stop to it, they put [her] on the bus with the perpetrator," says an attorney for the family, which is now considering a lawsuit against the district, per WAFB. The case has drawn attention to the growing problem of deepfakes in schools. Some policymakers argue that the companies behind deepfake tools should be held accountable.
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