Identical twins win $2.2 million payout over exam cheating claims

A pair of identical twins have been awarded millions of dollars in damages six years after being accused of cheating on a university exam in the United States.

Kayla and Kellie Bingham were branded "cheats" in May 2016 after the Medical University of South Carolina deemed their test scores from a second-year exam were too similar to be a coincidence.

The twins, who were then aged 24, were called before the medical school's official council to explain themselves.

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Despite Kellie explaining the sisters had scored similar test results since primary school and high school, the council maintained its stance.

The twins were told a professor at the school suspected they had been collaborating and advised a test monitor to "keep an extra eye" on the sisters during the exam.

They denied the allegations, stating that despite being assigned seats at the same table during the exam their view of each other was obstructed by a test monitor.

The sisters also pressed their case with the council that as twins, they had been told they had "incredibly similar" mannerisms.

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"I never anticipated that nodding at your computer screen could be used against you – and confirmation bias is given when you're showing regular and familiar behaviours at an exam," Kayla told Insider.

The council upheld its findings the twins had cheated.

They appealed the decision with the school's dean and were cleared of the charges. However, the repetitional damage had been done.

The sisters became targets of gossip and were quickly ostracised on campus. Their plight soon appeared in the US media.

By September 2016 the twins withdrew from the university and their medical studies.

"It honestly killed me," Kellie told Insider.

"I'd dreamed about being a doctor since I was little – Kayla and I wanted to help people."

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In 2017 the twins filed a lawsuit against MUSC for defamation. It took five years for their case to reach the courts.

Their case centred on the identical or near-identical test scores the sisters have achieved in past exams.

At the trial a university professor gave evidence in a letter that the twins provided the same answers "some right, some wrong" for a 2012 exam he supervised.

The professor said that during the exam the sisters had been sitting at opposite ends of the classroom. He stated it would have been impossible for them to collaborate.

Last month, a jury awarded the sisters $2.2 million ($US1.5 million) in damages.

The twins, now aged 31, are both lawyers. They switched career paths so they could attempt to ensure "people don't have to endure what we did".