Dartmouth provost's 2026 articles flagged as AI-written in student newspaper investigation

Dartmouth College provost Santiago Schnell is facing a backlash on campus after The Dartmouth, the student newspaper, found a median “AI-written” text estimate of 96% across nine of his individually authored 2026 academic and opinion articles, per the AI detector Pangram. His published works from before the November 2022 release of ChatGPT were all rated “100% human-written”.

The probe followed an investigation by Semafor on 26 August, which flagged his Washington Post column — “Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there’s a deeper problem.” — as 100% AI-written. In it, he warned universities must distinguish what students can do independently from what they can accomplish with AI.

In an 18 September emailed statement to The Dartmouth, Schnell said he uses AI for “language refinement, copyediting, improving clarity and organization and making writing processes more efficient,” saying he “review[s] the final text and take[s] responsibility for its content” and regards the tools as “assistive”. That statement itself returned “100% AI-written” when run through Pangram.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that four journals and repositories that published his work this year require authors to disclose generative-AI use; Schnell disclosed AI use in two of the four papers, but not the other two — both flagged by Pangram as substantially AI-generated.

Schnell, a Venezuelan-born mathematician and theoretical biologist whose native language is Spanish, became provost in July 2025. He told the Chronicle he takes “full responsibility for anything that is published in my name” and will “proactively follow all policies set forth by each publication”.