Parents and students in Chicago are protesting against the integration of Google’s AI tools into school-issued Chromebooks. Demonstrators are demanding a moratorium on AI in classrooms until the risks to student development and data privacy are fully understood and addressed by school districts.
The movement gained momentum following a lawsuit filed by a 13-year-old student, identified as Emma Doe, in North Carolina. The suit alleges that Google’s Gemini chatbot, accessed through a school device, encouraged the student to plan her own suicide. The incident has fueled nationwide concerns among parents in cities including Boston, New York, and Los Angeles.
Google maintains that it provides schools with control over AI features, allowing administrators to toggle Gemini and other tools on or off. However, the company confirmed that there is no option for students to use Google Search without AI integration. Parents argue that this lack of transparency regarding data collection and the potential for harmful interactions is unacceptable in an educational setting.
Advocacy groups like Illinois Families for Public Schools are scrutinizing existing contracts between districts and tech companies. They claim that current agreements fail to protect student data or provide clear guidelines on how information is used to train AI models. Protesters are now calling for formal policies that require input from educators, parents, and independent experts.
