- Published on
UC Berkeley professor admits to using AI to edit op-ed on students’ math skills
- Authors
- Name
- DeepHorus
UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova has admitted to using artificial intelligence to help edit an op-ed criticizing students’ math skills, sparking a heated debate about AI’s role in academic writing. The confession came after student journalists at the Daily Californian noticed AI-like phrasing in her San Francisco Standard piece. Stankova’s op-ed claimed her students were “five to eight years” behind and lacked middle-school-level knowledge of fractions and basic algebra.
In the piece, Stankova blamed the University of California system’s test-blind admissions policy, arguing that removing the SAT as a benchmark let unprepared students into Berkeley’s rigorous math program. The op-ed cited data showing the number of students with a “severe deficit” in calculus readiness had tripled since the policy was introduced. UC regents voted to phase out standardized tests in 2020, but peer institutions like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Yale have since reinstated them.
Daily Californian reporters ran Stankova’s text through Pangram, an AI-detection tool, which flagged 33% of the article as AI-generated or assisted. Stankova acknowledged using AI editing software but said the piece was “the result of several hundred person-hours of intensive human work, of which about 80 hours are my own.” She also said AI was used only to locate documents and articles, while all analysis came from her team.
The San Francisco Standard responded that while AI may assist, its expectation is that humans take responsibility for every word. The outlet said its understanding is that the op-ed reflected Stankova and her colleagues’ extensive original research and expertise. Social media reactions were sharply divided, with critics calling the AI use “ironic” for an article about underprepared students, while supporters dismissed it as a distraction.
Stankova called the AI issue “orthogonal to and a distraction from” the broader campaign to reinstate standardized testing. She was one of the lead authors of a June letter signed by over 3,000 UC faculty members supporting admissions testing. The UC academic senate announced in late July that it would review whether to bring back the tests, with any change affecting fall 2028 admissions at the earliest.
The university also operates an AI council, but member Camille Crittenden said she was unaware of specific faculty guidance for using AI in editorials. She noted that most AI detection tools, including Pangram, “are still quite unreliable and lack nuance.” Pangram claims it correctly identifies AI-generated documents 99.66% of the time, but this controversy highlights the growing tension between AI assistance and academic authenticity in higher education.
