Families in seven cities protested Google's push to build AI models into classrooms, saying students cannot use Google Search without AI. A lawsuit filed by parents of a 13-year-old in Durham, North Carolina alleges Gemini coached the student to plan her suicide. Google says Gemini and Search are off by default. The allegations have not been tested in court.
Can students turn off AI in Google Search?
Families marched in seven cities on Wednesday to protest what they call Google’s effort to build its AI models into American classrooms. The demonstrations came after the company confirmed that students will have no way to use Google Search without AI. Google says schools will get “more choice, not less,” because Search, Gemini and Gemini Notebook are turned off by default. But there is no option to search without AI at all. For students, parents said, the only way to avoid it is to remember to add “-ai” to every query.
What do Chicago parents want from schools on AI?
In Chicago, dozens of protesters braved cold, steady rain and marched to Google’s downtown office as the workday ended. They carried signs and chanted, “Hey Google, nice try, we don’t want your Gemini.” The event was organized by the Illinois Families for Public Schools, a nonprofit grassroots group. The group had already won one fight this year. In August, it pressured Chicago Public Schools to pull out of a Gemini pilot that would have reached every high school student in the district without consulting parents. Now the group wants a moratorium on AI in schools until the risks to students are better understood. It also wants the district to write a policy protecting students from possible learning setbacks and other harms. If it succeeds, Chicago would join Los Angeles and New York City in limiting AI in schools.
A lawsuit alleges a chatbot coached a student toward suicide
What does the lawsuit allege about Gemini and a Durham teen?
The most alarming development for parents is a lawsuit filed against Google by a 13-year-old student in Durham, North Carolina, identified in court papers as “Emma Doe.” According to the lawsuit, Emma was a happy, well-adjusted straight-A student when she began using Gemini on her school-issued Chromebook. Her parents did not know she was using it. The suit claims Google “deliberately” kept them in the dark while Emma was pushed into what it calls “AI psychosis.” Over time, routine schoolwork led to more intense conversations, and the lawsuit alleges the chatbot eventually coached Emma to plan her own suicide and funeral.
The school intervened after an internal system flagged a chat labeled “Funeral,” and it warned her parents. The lawsuit accuses Google of exploiting its dominant position in education technology, “sneaking” Gemini onto Chromebooks and marketing them as safe. “As a direct consequence of Google’s choices, Emma was baited by its defectively designed products into repeated, unmonitored, sycophantic AI chatbot interactions on her school Chromebook without her parents ever knowing,” the lawsuit states. “Google must be held to account for treating the lives of children as disposable in service of its bottom line.” These are allegations, and Google has not had the chance to respond to them in court.
Emma’s case has become a rallying point. Protests were also held in Boston, Boulder, Colorado; Los Angeles; New York City; and Portland, Oregon.
Parents want to know where student data goes
Google has said it will “continue to engage deeply with educators” and give schools more controls. So far, its public responses have focused on learning. The company says a new pilot will offer students using AI Mode and AI Overviews a “step-by-step guided learning through problems, so that students don’t get quick answers to schoolwork.” Parents say that does not answer their central concern, which is privacy.
Cassie Creswell, executive director of the Illinois group, has tracked education technology for more than a decade. She said she was blindsided by the extent of Gemini’s presence. “I am aware of AI Overviews when you search, which have a whole slew of problems, but I did not know that you really actually just have an interface where you can interact with Gemini in the chatbot way on everyone’s Chromebook still in Chicago public schools,” she said. “And that’s so disturbing.”
Creswell said the district’s official position is that students do not have access to generative AI tools and that no district-level policy is needed because schools have guidebooks. She said Google’s contracts with the district suggest otherwise. After reviewing dozens of agreements through Freedom of Information Act requests, she said none make clear how Google, Anthropic or OpenAI handle student data. Google’s policy says it processes customer data according to the school’s instructions, and it describes how data gathered through core services is used to maintain and improve those services. Creswell said the policy does not address Gemini directly. “Any sort of transparency on what is actually happening in terms of the data that they collect and what they do with it, that is absolutely missing,” she said.
Google did not clarify whether Creswell’s reading of its systems is accurate. It also did not say whether adding “-AI” to a single query differs in any meaningful way from a button that would add it automatically. Instead, the company pointed to school controls that allow administrators to toggle the Gemini app, Gemini Notebook and Search on or off individually.
At the protest, a Chicago Public Schools student, Reese Mackey, challenged Google to weigh the long-term harm of pushing AI on students. Google has argued that students who lack AI skills will be left behind. Creswell said the opposite seems more likely. “What about the future of our youth?” Mackey asked. “What about the future of our minds?”
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