In the ajax call you'are not feeding the studentArr
array with emails, it stays empty, that's why filter
function will always return an empty array and the test for duplicated emails will fails, try this:
$.get("/files/students.txt", function(data) {
var html1 = "";
html1 += "<tr>";
html1 += "<th>Students</th>";
html1 += "<th>Email Address</th>";
html1 += "</tr>";
var rows = data.split("\n");
rows.forEach( function getvalues(thisRow) {
html1 += "<tr>\n";
var columns = thisRow.split(",");
for(var i=0;i<columns.length;i++){
html1 += "<td>" + columns[i] + "</td>\n";
}
// push name and email to studentArr
studentArr.push(studentArr.push({
name:columns[0],
email:columns[1]
}););
});
html1 += "</tr>\n";
$("#output").append(html1);
});