Overview
- The law school will bar laptops, tablets and phones from all first‑year classes starting this fall and require in‑person exams with no internet, electronic files or apps to verify student work.
- Faculty will add oral discussions for major papers so professors can probe students’ understanding and authorship of their research.
- The ban includes narrow exceptions for tech‑specific activities such as polls, a designated student scribe who may take notes electronically, and accommodations for disabilities.
- UChicago frames the change as one part of a three‑part AI strategy that expands an AI Lab and elective courses and explicitly allows some outside‑class AI uses like study partners and revision tools.
- School leaders say the move responds to documented harms from generative AI—student cheating and lawyers’ filings with fabricated citations—and follows faculty pilots and multi‑year consultations, with the policy slated for ongoing review.