# Brown Professor Alleges AI-Assisted Mass Cheating in Exam > Source: > Published: 2026-07-09 15:27:11+00:00 For AI practitioners and educators, the Brown incident highlights how accessible generative models can undermine take-home assessments and push institutions toward supervised or redesigned evaluation strategies. According to reporting by Inside Higher Ed, Fortune, Ars Technica and other outlets, Brown economics professor Roberto Serrano gave a take-home midterm to his ECON 1170 class after a December campus shooting; the midterm produced an average score of **96 percent**, with **40** of **86** students earning perfect or nearly perfect marks (Inside Higher Ed, Fortune). Inside Higher Ed and Ars Technica reported that Serrano and his graders compared student answers with outputs from `ChatGPT`, finding similar wording and reasoning. After Serrano announced an in-person final, several students dropped the course, and reporting shows the final average fell to roughly **48 percent** with **19** students failing (Ars Technica, Inside Higher Ed). Multiple outlets characterized the case as a large-scale AI-assisted cheating incident in the Ivy League (Fortune, Futurism).