Alexis Popovici, Andrei Ionascu, Adrian-Marius Dumitran (2026) — arXiv preprint.
A systematic API audit of four LLMs acting as history tutors evaluates 1,800 responses about the 1989 Romanian Revolution, exposing a 'paternalistic filter': models differentially refuse or soften answers for marginalized students, reproducing epistemic injustice. The audit reveals that guardrails and refusals are not uniform but patterned by student identity and topic sensitivity.
Centers on llm tutors in student-experience and the harms catalogued under ai-tutor-safety-harms, with strong links to bias-mitigation and equity in higher-ed. It extends over-reliance concerns by showing even refusal behavior can entrench inequality, and calls for fairness evaluations that account for differential treatment across student groups.
Related Pages
- llm — LLM history tutors audited
- student-experience — Differential treatment of marginalized students
- ai-tutor-safety-harms — Catalogue of tutor harms
- bias-mitigation — Identity-patterned refusals
- equity — Epistemic injustice in education
- over-reliance — Refusal as inequality mechanism