A pair of identical twins have been awarded $1.5 million in damages by a South Carolina college after it falsely accused them of cheating by signaling at a medical exam, since a court ruled their answers were identical were because their minds were connected.
Kayla and Kellie Bingham, 30, originally enrolled at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 2016 to pursue their dream of one day becoming doctors.
Now, six years later, after the medical school was sued for defamation, the two sisters have been compensated for having their reputations damaged after a jury ruled in their favour.
It all started when both siblings, who were 24 when the scandal was first exposed, were forced to sit at the same table during a medical exam, according to Kellie.
She told Insider that even though they were only four to five feet apart, she and Kayla found it virtually impossible to see each other’s computer screens.
Kayla and Kellie Bingham, 30, have been awarded $1.5 million in damages by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) after they sued the college for defamation over allegations that both former medical students failed an exam in 2016 had cheated
The Medical University of South Carolina refused to consider the twins’ story of similar scores on quizzes, tests and exams as proof they had not cheated. Instead, the two sisters had communicated through signs and social cues
It also wasn’t the first time the daughters of South Carolina’s Republican Rep. Kenny Bingham had tested together and done similarly.
The twins had received the same SAT scores despite testing on different days and locations, and were also graded within a fraction of a point of each other in high school. Both had registered similar answers to test questions since first grade.
That didn’t matter to the MUSC faculty, however, as Kayla and Kellie were subpoenaed two weeks after the medical to be informed they had been formally accused of cheating by the college.
“My mind was racing,” Kayla told Insider, recalling how she felt when she first spoke before the medical school honors committee. “I was sobbing and incredulous that this was happening to us.”
“There’s no way to process your feelings when you’re being blamed for something you didn’t do,” she added.
Despite testing on different days and locations, Kayla (left) and Kellie (right) received the same SAT scores and were also graded within a fraction of a point of each other in high school
Kellie had thought MUSC would withdraw its cheating allegations after informing the school board about similar testing patterns she and her sister had in the past.
That shouldn’t be the case. Additionally, both former medical students had discovered that a professor had “raised the alarm after remotely monitoring the entire class’s results,” Insider reported, leading him to believe both sisters had worked together to find answers .
The investigator was then asked to keep a close eye on the twins and had noticed that they both kept nodding their heads as if sending signals to each other. She also saw one of the two women “turn over” a piece of paper on the table “so the other could see it.”
“We just nodded at a question on our own computer screens,” Kayla told Insider, adding that she and Kallie had “incredibly similar” manners and didn’t think they’d possibly be accused of it one day.
Kayla described the cheating allegations to MUSC’s honors committee as “ridiculous” and insisted she and Kallie had no “twin telepathy” or “secret language.”
“We don’t feel each other’s pain or anything,” she continued, adding that “there weren’t any signals” or any questionable looks between her and her sister.
Kayla and Kellie would eventually get MUSC to drop their cheating allegations a week after they were made, but the students’ reputations and credibility had already been damaged
Despite a staunch defense, the twins were unable to prove their innocence and appealed to the college’s dean, Raymond DuBois, who cleared them of any wrongdoing a week later.
However, the credibility and reputation of the two sisters were damaged even then. They became unpopular on campus and labeled “academically dishonest” by their peers.
Their names also surfaced in local and state media, resulting in them being isolated from friends and “disinvited” to two weddings, Insider reported.
By September 2016, Kallie and Kayla had left MUSC “on the dean’s recommendation because it had become so hostile” before filing a lawsuit against the college in 2017.
At trial, the jury was presented with evidence that both former medical students had achieved identical scores on tests, exams and quizzes throughout their childhoods.
A professor who taught both siblings before they enrolled in medical school at the college had also written in the twins’ defense. He said in a letter that both gave exactly the same answers – right or wrong – on an exam he proctored in 2012, despite sitting at opposite ends of the classroom.
Kayla and Kellie dropped out of medical school to become libel lawyers! Pictured: The twins are graduating from college before enrolling in medical school
Professor Nancy Segal, a psychologist and behavioral geneticist specializing in the study of twins at California State University at Fullerton, also testified in court. She claimed that she would have been stunned if Kayla and Kellie hadn’t come to the same conclusion they’d consistently pursued throughout the time they both spent at school: getting similar results on an exam.
She also said cheating complaints against twins were “common” in higher education.
‘They are genetically predisposed to behave in the same way,’ Professor Segal said. “They grew up the same and are natural partners in the same environment.”
Kayla recalled the moment the jury read her findings as “the greatest moment of our lives” and when they were finally proven innocent, “we were all restored.”
Since dropping out of medical school, both sisters have become attorneys and achieved similar results at the LSAT before eventually graduating in 2021.
They are not colleagues in the same law firm taking on libel cases similar to the one they experienced and started six years ago.