The University of Chicago Law School will prohibit phones, tablets, and laptops in first-year courses starting this fall, a policy shift announced Thursday that reflects a broader effort to adapt legal education to the challenges posed by generative AI. The move, which applies to all incoming students, marks one of the most explicit institutional responses to AI disruption in higher education.
The decision follows a period of experimentation in which some professors voluntarily banned devices in their classrooms. According to the school's announcement, both faculty and students reported positive outcomes from those trials, prompting the university-wide policy. The ban is notable because while device restrictions are common in many classrooms, they rarely extend to laptops and are typically left to individual instructors rather than mandated across an entire program.
The policy is part of a wider curriculum overhaul designed to make the law school's teaching "AI-resilient," according to a statement from the institution. The statement emphasized that rigorous legal education must remain open to rapid adaptation in the face of AI's impact on higher education. The school also pointed to broader societal concerns about declining literacy and numeracy skills among students, though the announcement did not explicitly mention AI cheating.
Beyond the classroom ban, the law school has introduced new examination rules. Students will now take exams in class without access to the internet or applications, a change aimed at ensuring assessments reflect individual knowledge rather than AI-assisted output. Additionally, students will be required to engage in oral discussions with professors about their research papers, a format that allows faculty to gauge understanding and originality directly.
Despite the restrictions, the school is careful to position the policy as a targeted measure rather than a blanket rejection of AI. Mark Templeton, a clinical professor and member of the law school's AI Committee, said in a statement that the goal is to steer students "toward using AI in ways that promote learning rather than inhibit it." Similarly, William Hubbard, a professor of law and economics who chairs the AI Committee, described acceptable uses of the technology. "If you want to use AI as a study partner, if you want to use AI to ingest your notes from class and then create questions to quiz you on the material, that's great," Hubbard said. "That's not a shortcut. There are ways that using AI can strengthen the learning process and that's what we're trying to lean into."
Wider Context of AI Cheating
The University of Chicago's policy arrives amid a wave of AI-related academic integrity incidents at prestigious institutions. At Brown University, a professor recently uncovered what may be the largest AI cheating ring in Ivy League history, suspecting that more than half of his students used a chatbot on an exam. Princeton University, meanwhile, ended its century-old Honor Code tradition by requiring supervised exams after suspicions of AI cheating surfaced.
The legal profession itself has also faced scrutiny over AI misuse. Numerous lawyers have been reprimanded by judges for submitting court filings that contained clear AI hallucinations, including fabricated case law and misattributed quotes. These incidents have heightened concerns about the readiness of new attorneys to use AI responsibly.
Chicago Law's new policy is thus part of a larger conversation about how educational institutions and professional bodies should respond to generative AI. The school's approach—combining restrictions with encouragement of deliberate AI use—reflects an attempt to balance caution with preparation for an AI-driven world. As the academic year begins, other institutions will likely watch closely to see how the policy affects student learning and integrity.
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