Ivy League faculty are pushing back on AI in public, from Dartmouth's Anthropic deal to Harvard's classrooms
Six Dartmouth professors objected on the record to the college's Anthropic deal, two thirds of Harvard faculty say AI hurt their courses, and a Brown economist's exam average halved.
Dartmouth signed with Anthropic, and its own professors objected
Dartmouth announced a partnership with Anthropic and Amazon Web Services on 3 December 2025, which The Dartmouth called the first adoption of AI at institutional scale in the Ivy League. The student paper reported on 13 January 2026 that more than 130 Arts and Sciences faculty have publications named in the copyright class action against Anthropic, which the company agreed to settle for 1.5 billion US dollars.
| Professor | Department | On the record |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew Garcia | Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies | “They have not honored shared governance” |
| Bethany Moreton | History | Anthropic “ripped off the published scholarly work” of the college’s own faculty |
| Mary Coffey | Art History | The faculty committee’s only input was that it “helped the College shape the message” |
| Aden Evens | English | “Something is deeply wrong when the company that steals without acknowledgement the writing of my colleagues” becomes a partner |
| Stephen Brooks | Government | “It’s a big problem that firms that misuse intellectual property face so little consequences” |
| Darrin McMahon | History | “I wish there could have been more input from the faculty” |
One professor quoted took the other side. Sean Westwood of the government department said: “We could certainly try to pretend that AI is not going to be a requirement for future jobs.”
The provost, Santiago Schnell, told Inside Higher Ed that the 100% label “is not accurate” and that “I wrote this essay based on my own thinking.” Careless use left a trace a detector could find, and it gave the faculty their strongest argument of the year.
At Harvard, two thirds of faculty say AI hurt their classes
Harvard Magazine reported on 18 September 2026 on the Crimson’s annual survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
| Of 463 faculty who answered | Share |
|---|---|
| Say AI has had a negative effect on their classes | Two thirds, up from 42% in 2025 |
| Have received coursework they knew or suspected was AI-generated | Nearly 90% |
Harvard’s leaders are moving the other way. The president says he is “convinced” AI will speed the advance of knowledge, the dean of the College favors “actively encouraging AI usage where it can deepen learning,” and the College has given its members access to Claude and added a required AI module to first-year writing. The historian Jill Lepore is quoted on the other side: “The machine conversation is not free.”
At Brown, an in-person final cut the average in half
Roberto Serrano, an economist at Brown, suspected AI use on a take-home midterm in spring 2026 and announced an in-person, closed-book final. Many students dropped the course. The final average fell from 96 to 48, GBH News reported. He has since made homework worth nothing toward the grade and added an oral exam by webcam. He is not banning AI. His line: “We cannot choose to become idiots.”
A search of the other five schools turned up no faculty letter
Searches of the student papers at Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell and Penn turned up no faculty letter or resolution against AI. At Penn, Wharton’s dean took the school all-in in 2024.
The objections are about governance, copied work and cheating
| Objection | Where | Does it bear on a researcher’s tools? |
|---|---|---|
| The deal was made without the faculty | Dartmouth | No. It is about who decides |
| The partner copied our published work | Dartmouth | No. It is about a lawsuit |
| Students use it to avoid learning | Harvard, Brown | No. It is about assessment |
| An administrator had it write for him | Dartmouth | Yes, as a warning: careless use gets caught |
None of the professors quoted argues that an agent cannot pull data or estimate a model. A finance researcher asking a committee for agent access will meet these arguments anyway. Answer the one that is being made, which is usually about process, and bring a pipeline whose checks the committee can read. The SEC filings guide is one to show them.
Sources
- The Dartmouth thedartmouth.com
- Inside Higher Ed, Dartmouth Provost's AI Dependency Sparks Backlash insidehighered.com
- Harvard Magazine, The Harvard AI Debate Heats Up harvardmagazine.com
- GBH News, on AI and learning in college wgbh.org