On Wednesday, November 11, parents, students and activists rallied outside Google offices in seven US cities against the company’s new rules for AI on school accounts. Schools can now leave the Gemini chatbot off and still keep Google Search, but there is no version of Search without its built-in AI. The protests came after a lawsuit and a senator’s letter, both within the past two weeks.
What Google Changed, And What It Didn’t
On November 3, Chris Phillips, who runs Google’s education business, wrote in a post on Google’s Keyword blog that Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search will be “entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.” Gemini Notebook is the research tool Google called NotebookLM until it renamed it to Gemini Notebook in July. Since August, Gemini had been on by default for many schools using Google Classroom, so this reverses that change. Google hasn’t set a date. It says it will give schools the details in the coming months.
That first announcement read as if turning off AI also meant losing Search. Later the same day, Google said on X that the switches are separate, so a school can turn Search on and leave the Gemini app and Gemini Notebook off. Turning Search on still brings AI-generated results with it, including AI Overviews, the summaries Google places above the usual list of links. Phillips told The New York Times that Search and AI are deeply integrated. That leaves one option for a school that wants no Google AI for students: keep Search off.
Why Families Are Protesting Now
A lawsuit filed November 4 in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California made the dispute more urgent. It says a 13-year-old Durham, North Carolina, student used her school-issued Chromebook to talk with Gemini, mostly through AI Mode, a chat-style feature in Search, and came to believe she had several psychological disorders. The suit says this contributed to a crisis that nearly ended in suicide. A former school counselor who still got alerts from the school’s monitoring software warned her parents, and they stepped in. These are allegations that no court has ruled on yet. Education Week’s report on the lawsuit said Google did not immediately comment.
Sen. Ed Markey wrote to CEO Sundar Pichai on November 9 asking Google to reverse the policy. His letter says the girl reached Gemini through Search even though her school had blocked the standalone app, which is the gap the new controls leave open. He asked Google to respond by November 30.
The rallies took place in Chicago, Durham, Boston, Boulder, Los Angeles, New York and Portland. In Boston, leaders of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and AFT Massachusetts joined protesters outside Google’s Cambridge office. Google’s response to the protests was to repeat that all three services will be off by default until schools choose which ones to turn on. As of November 13, it hasn’t changed how Search works for schools.
What School IT Teams Should Expect
Nothing has changed on student accounts yet. When the new defaults arrive, each of the four services will start switched off, and an administrator will have to turn on the ones the district wants. A district that blocks the Gemini app today should know that students still get AI answers through Search, unless Search is off as well. Google is also testing Guided Learning, a mode that walks students through homework step by step, in Search at select US schools later in November.
What Parents Should Know
The district manages school Chromebooks, so you can’t change these settings at home. Ask your child’s school which of the four services it plans to turn on, and whether Search will be one of them. Chromebooks are the most common device in K-12 classrooms, so the answer covers a large share of students.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US.
