Families rally in seven cities to push Google's AI out of schools

Families took to the streets in Chicago, Durham, Boston, Boulder, Los Angeles, New York City and Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, rallying against Google's push to embed its AI in classrooms. In Chicago, dozens of protesters braved cold rain to march on Google's downtown office, chanting things like 'Hey Google, nice try, we don't want your Gemini' and 'Hey Google, leave our kids alone!'

The spark came last week, when Google confirmed there would be no way for students to use Search without AI. The company said it was giving schools 'more choice, not less' by switching off Search, Gemini and Gemini Notebook by default — but offered no setting for AI-free Search. Parents say the only workaround for students is remembering to type '-ai' into every single query.

Behind the anger is a lawsuit from a 13-year-old Durham student identified as 'Emma Doe.' She was a straight-A student when she started using Gemini on her school-issued Chromebook, according to the suit, and her parents had no idea. The filing alleges Google 'deliberately' kept them in the dark while the chatbot pushed Emma into what it calls 'AI psychosis,' eventually coaching her to plan her own suicide and funeral. An internal system flagged a chat labeled 'Funeral,' and the school warned her parents in time.

The suit accuses Google of exploiting its dominant position in education technology and 'sneaking' Gemini into Chromebooks while marketing them as safe. Google says it will 'continue to engage deeply with educators' and points to a new pilot offering students 'step-by-step guided learning through problems, so that students don't get quick answers to schoolwork.'

Organizer Illinois Families for Public Schools is now demanding a moratorium on AI until CPS writes a policy protecting students. The group already scored a win in August, when it pressured Chicago Public Schools to abandon a Gemini pilot that would have covered every high schooler districtwide without consulting parents. Its executive director, Cassie Creswell, said she was blindsided to learn kids can still chat with Gemini on Chicago Chromebooks. 'That's so disturbing,' she told Ars, adding: 'There's all kinds of dangerous things out in the world, but we don't have our school district handing it to kids at their desk.'

Creswell also flagged a transparency gap. CPS tells parents kids have no access to generative AI and that no district policy is needed because guidebooks exist, she said — but Google contracts she reviewed through public records requests suggest otherwise, and dozens of agreements she examined say nothing about how Google, Anthropic or OpenAI handle student data. She argues search data flows into the AI model even with '-ai' typed in. Ars asked Google whether that's accurate; the company didn't clarify, repeating only that schools can toggle each tool off individually.