‘Epidemic’ Leads to UofC Law Web Ban

Law Schools

Posted Apr 11, 2008, 01:28 pm CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The University of Chicago Law School has shut down Internet access for most of its classrooms because too many students were surfing the Web instead of taking notes on their laptops.

U of C law Dean Saul Levmore told students and faculty in an e-mail that he took action after classroom observers told him about an “epidemic” of Internet use in class, the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reports (article posted on the university’s website).

"Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes and within 20 minutes, an entire row is shoe shopping,” he said. “Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated."

Levmore told the Law Bulletin that some students were e-mailing others to help them answer professors’ classroom questions. But the larger problem, he said, is that students are being distracted from participating in the classroom experience. Soon the students "are going to go out to law firms and other settings where they're going to miss these years where they had opportunities for human interaction and contemplating ideas,” he said.

Some law professors have banned laptops entirely from their classrooms, an idea considered but rejected at U of C. One of them is Suffolk University Law School professor Kate Nace Day. “Laptops are pedagogical nuisances,” she told the ABA Journal in a November 2007 story.

Levmore said he is doing his own part to avoid distraction. He has pledged that he will no longer check his BlackBerry under the table at university meetings.

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Posted by Alisha - 1 month, 5 days, 8 hours, 46 minutes ago

This might not be a bad thing. I am a 2L at another Tier 1, and this situation is rampant here as well. It seems like most students were raised on IM and the internet and just can’t ignore it during class. I frequently see people who don’t look at their notes or textbook even once during my Constitutional Law class. I wish my school would ban the internet too.
Posted by 3L - 1 month, 5 days, 12 minutes ago

If the argument is that the school wants to protect the law students from themselves i.e. force them not to go on the internet and pay attention instead, I can all-but-guarantee that students will find other ways to avoid having to listen in class. We’re all adults, if we don’t want to pay attention in class, no amount of internet banning is going to force us to listen. And most of us will suffer the consequences - either fail out or do horribly on finals. That’s a collateral consequence that we’ll have to bear as adults.

But, if the argument is that internet surfing in class is distracting to other students, rather than banning internet altogether, why not enforce a policy where students are required to get privacy screens for their laptops. That way, everyone is happy in the interim - those who want to waste their time away doodling on a gaming site, can do so. Those who want to pay attention, have no viewable internet-surfing in their vicinity to distract them. There is no utter reason to outright ban internet access altogether - sure, schools have the right to do so, but if a smaller bullet will work, why bring out the bazooka?
Posted by recent grad - 1 month, 3 days, 10 hours, 17 minutes ago

I agree with the first paragraph of 3L’s comment above. I admit, as a student I spent far too much time online during class and I did pay for it with lower grades. But that’s the consequence I have to face as an adult in a graduate program.

However, I think there’s a different solution that law firms and other large offices have been using for years. The technology exists for schools to install content filters for just the internet routers serving classrooms. Schools could mandate a “whitelist” of websites students can use during class for legitimate purposes (Lexis, Westlaw, etc.) or semi-legitimate purposes (email). This won’t eliminate goofing off entirely (students can still email gossip and homework to each other) but it should curb the worst abuses (online gaming, shopping). Non-classroom areas like law journal offices, the library, or the cafeteria can be set to be filter-free.
Posted by 3rd year associate - 1 month, 2 days, 13 hours, 28 minutes ago

I think the solution is to start teaching things that will help students pass the bar and be efficient lawyers.

I know I tend to pay more attention when the subject matter being discussed is relevant to, well, anything.
Posted by Tom - 1 month, 2 days, 7 hours, 41 minutes ago

I think law school is great for getting students talking/thinking about social/legal issues among themselves and with professors who can be approached …almost none of the interesting talking/ thinking it occurs in the classroom and the students know it. Also, did I miss something, or if students are surfing and not paying attention, BUT are still graduating AND passing the bar exams…is so...then what is relevant/worthwhile about the class or the discussion (human interaction) that students choose not to engage with?

Of course now that the Internet is shut down and policy is being drafted....what do you think is happening now in class? Hmmmmm.....m-2-m text messages, class twitter…and DVDs/video files for killing time. I guess the Chicago Law School administration missed this video about educational institutional space relevance here: (http://www.integrativesemantics.com/2008/04/law-schoola-land-of-classroom.html)

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