He wrote his essay on The Crucible. Then his school held a witch hunt.

The assignment was Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" — an allegory about a community destroying people based on unreliable testimony and refusing to back down. In October, a sophomore at Palo Alto High School submitted his essay. By December, his English teacher had run it through Turnitin, which reported 76% of the text was likely written by AI. The school required him to rewrite in class. He got a D.

His family submitted drafts, timestamps, and direct access to his Google Doc revision history — a 1,162-page evidentiary packet. They made the school an offer: give him a B, and everyone goes home. Palo Alto Unified said no. Now Takashi Kato's family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the Northern District of California, alleging Title IX sex discrimination and Title VI national-origin discrimination.

The complaint claims the pattern extended beyond one student. Other Asian and male students in the same class were allegedly flagged by the same tool, forced to rewrite in class, and handed Ds that gutted previously strong grades. It also alleges that an assistant principal took the student's handwritten rewrite, had a secretary type it up, and ran it through Turnitin without notifying the family or obtaining consent.

Turnitin's own website says its tool "should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student" and acknowledges a variance of plus or minus 15 percentage points in its scores — meaning the 76% flag that started all this could legitimately reflect anywhere from 61% to 91% AI content. Palo Alto Unified declined to comment, citing pending litigation.