Update: Hey Teacher, Leave Those Kids (and Their Internet) Alone!
We reported yesterday about the University of Chicago Law School cutting off access to ATL internet in the classroom. A University of Chicago student sent along the e-mail from Dean Saul Levmore explaining the anti-internet policy, and said that we “should absolutely post the full text of Levmore’s asinine email.”
Check it out in its entirety after the jump. Here’s an excerpt:
Few things should be as important to our community as regaining and establishing our common sense that the classroom should be a place for learning and interaction. Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding.Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated. I confess that as I have researched this subject, I have been made aware how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings. I have promised myself that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at University meetings.
So tempted to shoe shop… Must finish blog post… We wonder how long Dean Levmore will keep his Blackberry promise. It reminds us of the Seinfeld “master of my domain” episode. How long can he hold out? Anyone want to make a wager? What’s the over / under?
(Poor Dean Levmore, by the way, is also taking flak for Chicago’s drop — just from #6 to #7, but some commenters are apoplectic — in the latest U.S. News law school rankings.)
Results of our poll, plus selected reader comments and the full text of Dean Levmore’s message, after the jump.
The majority of ATL readers are proponents of internet access in the classroom, though a sizable third are opposed. It also appears that most of our voting readers are East Coasters:
Here are some of the comments on our earlier post from the proponents:
The internet is great, and law school class is pointless anyway - I spend 75% of the time in class on ATL, facebook, and ESPN.com. It’s nice to have a distraction from hearing profs ramble on and on about shit we know isn’t going to be on our test. And no, I’m not an idiot - top 5% of class. Posted by: 2L | March 25, 2008 01:35 PMTake away the internet and you’ll just have more people sleeping in class. Personally, I find people snoring more distracting that people on the internet - especially since most of surfing the web can be done via links and favorites and very little typing.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2008 01:40 PMi am in M&A class right now bored out of my mind listening to the rambling of an 80 year old man who does not care to keep class interesting or use any class participation. if schools dont want the internet to be a distraction, hire better professors or force the professors to be more interesting. they should earn their money.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2008 02:02 PM
And from those opposed to internet in the classroom:
chicago is a very serious law school. we all work very hard and we don’t have to appease the slacker students out there. i applaud the decision of the school to pull the plug on in-class wireless access. Posted by: chicago2L | March 25, 2008 01:41 PMit’s tough to concentrate when some douchebag in front of you is browsing Perez Hilton’s bright pink site with pictures of your favorite celeb with a big hand-drawn dildo promiscuously drawn on. no internet access in classrooms (but keep it in common areas) would be v welcome, improve the quality of discussion, and make students focus on lectures
Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2008 01:47 PMI’m all for this. For the people who actually want to pay attention in class, there is nothing more distracting than the people on all sides of you playing on Facebook and IMing. It’s like having a television screen on right in front of you.
And for those of you that do goof off, you should know that the pen and paper people do read what is on your screen. So stop lingerie shopping for your girlfriend, because while you might think Evidence is boring, the rest of us really don’t want to think about your sex life.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2008 02:11 PM
And thank you for this unrelated comment:
Kash is a super-cutie. More pix, please. Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2008 04:08 PM
Earlier: Hey Teacher, Leave Those Kids (and Their Internet) Alone! and Laptops vs. Learning — Once More, With Feeling
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL — EMAIL FROM DEAN SAUL LEVMORE RE: INTERNET ACCESS IN CLASSROOMS
Dear Students and Faculty Colleagues,
I write to announce and explain a new Law School policy. It is presently experimental, and will make its way into our Handbook after some experience and opportunity for feedback. I am tempted to begin with news aimed at those of you who miss the Law School while on Spring Break. We have, after all, hired some terrific new faculty, and the crews are busy in our front yard. But I do not wish to avoid my subject, which is Internet usage in our classrooms.
A great many conversations and classroom visits have generated the perception, and I think reality, that we have a growing problem in the form of the distractions presented by Internet surfing in the classroom. You know better than I that for many students class has come to consist of some listening but also plenty of e-mailing, shopping, news browsing, and gossip-site visiting. Many students say that the visual images on classmates’ screens are diverting, and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so. Our faculty (and I, as well as many of your classmates with whom I have spoken) believe strongly that we need to do everything we can to make Chicago’s classroom experiences all they can be. I therefore ask, respectfully but emphatically, that you use computers in class only for class-related purposes. Games and Internet usage in class should be like cell-phone usage or the ostentatious reading of newspapers – inappropriate, a breach of etiquette, and an insult to teacher, classmate, and self.
If it had proved impossible to turn off Internet access in our classrooms, I was prepared to write this letter to you and assert our new classroom norm. (This is a step that some law schools have taken, though I do not know enough about enforcement or effectiveness.) In our case, the wireless and wired connections in our classroom wing can, and have been, disabled. The shutdown will be imperfect. There will be leakage; some computers are radio-cellular enabled; and in one classroom we will leave the wired connections alive to facilitate occasional computer training. But it should now be considered a breach of our norms to plug in, or to use available wireless, during class time. Some law schools or professors have banned computers from class. A school-wide ban strikes me as a last resort because many students convincingly assert that their educational experiences are enhanced by note-taking on their computers. Other schools have invested in software that disables one’s ability to log in when that person has a scheduled class. I like to think that such steps will be unnecessary here. If we are serious about our classrooms as places where we try to teach and learn, and if we take our professional responsibilities seriously, then surely we know that class time is not for shopping and e-mailing.
There will be modest costs. On occasion it is nice to download from Chalk or other sites to get class or case materials. These will need to be accessed before class. We will also be unable to e-mail completed exams and course evaluations from the classrooms. I hope that something resembling on-off switches can be developed before we get to the end of the quarter but, if not, we will simply need to adjust. At quarter’s end, we will reassess the technology as well as our experiences, and we will survey faculty and students before deciding on a policy for the next academic year.
Few things should be as important to our community as regaining and establishing our common sense that the classroom should be a place for learning and interaction. Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding. Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated. I confess that as I have researched this subject, I have been made aware how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings. I have promised myself that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at University meetings. Opportunities for human interaction and for classroom learning will soon become rarer in your lives, and I hope that you too can make the most of the opportunities that you have here.
Thank you,
(82) 
Comments
I like Kash. She's funny, insightful, and has a masterful knowledge of Seinfeld. And she's very cute to boot.
Could you please stop posting pictures of yourself. Please keep it on facebook/myspace. Thanks.
When UCLA blocked internet during class, I would leave the class and go to the common room to check email or browse a website if I was bored. It was more distracting than if the school just treated us like adults.
I graduated top 5%, so I wasn't a slacker.
Why even go to class if you're not going to pay attention? Like many of the in-class internet addicts, I thought class was a waste of time. So I never went.
Maybe so, but lame attempt to try out newly-learned word "apoplectic".
This makes me think back to how truly terrible some of my professors were at teaching. I mean just flat out incompetent - communication skills, organization skills, the whole enchilada.
why are you deleting the "first" comments? you did it at least twice
3:58, I think what you meant was:
"Could you please stop posting [the same] picture[] of yourself. Please [don't] keep [them] on facebook/myspace. Thanks."
For a school admin person, I thought D. Levmore was pretty congenial and honest throughout the email. Nice old guy. Pat pat.
I didn't trash Obama. His African in-heat father went a-whoring with a trashy white woman.
He was born trash. I said, he was born trash!!
GOD HATES WHITE PEOPLE.
Obama in church.
Obama 08
FIRE LEVMORE
If I were a 0L this move by Chicago would definitely push me to attend peer schools instead.
I realize students want to be able to browse the web during class (I know I did), but, viewing the issue objectively, is there a rational reason that such behavior should be enabled? I can't think of any. "Class is worthless" falls way short.
I know people are going to think 4:08 is exaggerating, and I don't think anyone would ever switch schools solely based on Internet policy, but if I knew then what I know now and it was a toss-up between schools, this would definitely be a factor.
So much time is spent in class that if I didn't have the Internet as a break I would have gone stir crazy.
At least they can't take away freecell. That is if the kids today still play it.
All this you see around you? Bill Clinton did that.
And now you're trashing him for a long legged freak called Obama.
Just because he got a black face. But I also told you he got a white momma!!
Lets see Levmore's list of accomplishments:
1) Ban Internet
2) Lose Sunstein
3) Lose Vermeule
4) Lose Alschuler and Police Clinic
5) Let Penn Tie in Rankings
6) Let Berkley PASS in rankings
7) Hired Lichtman (douche)
8) Chew head off bat
9) The "ART" around classrooms
10) Let Prof Stone lead "Iraq is Vietnam" tirade at graduation speech (2006)
LEVMORE SHOULD THROW HIMSELF FROM LIBRARY ROOF AND LET WILD ANIMALS CHEW HIS BLOATED CARCASS!
If a school is being so paternal, they ought to pay your tuition as well.
Class is worthless.
4:09: Look up cases or facts in Lexis for class discussion.
4:14 - You forgot one "accomplishment." Hired Leiter (douche).
Obama plans to ban the internet through taxation.
Glad to see Chicago's dean is taking steps to reverse his school's d-bag reputation.
"I realize students want to be able to browse the web during class (I know I did), but, viewing the issue objectively, is there a rational reason that such behavior should be enabled? I can't think of any. "Class is worthless" falls way short."
It is more than class being worthless. To me, it has to do with being able to maximize my productivity. When you are sitting through a mind-numbing lecture, a 3-4 minute email break can be just what you need to reinvigorate you to get through another 15-20 minutes of drudgery. Also, as others have noted, if someone starts asking useless questions, the internet gives me a chance to catch up on news, sports, weather, etc.
Without the Internet I would have left class disgusted and bitter about how I just wasted that time.
If you have to turn off internet to get students to pay attention, your school deserves to be tied with PENN.
4:09--the reason is that the students pay the tuition.
"I have promised myself that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at University meetings."
Is that what they're calling it these days?
I agree with the Dean. Law School classes are for learning, Shop on your own time.
Listen up...
You should tell Levmore the same thing I told my Warden:
"You can have my shive when you pry it out of my cold dead rectum!"
Now hide those wireless routers!
Chicago: not as rigorous as we've been led to believe.
Lat, please delete offensive social and racial posts with no relevance. I don't like to read about people born trash or God hating white people, even if tongue in cheek.
You know, Michigan instituted such a wireless ban 2 years ago. It was repealed with little fanfare this fall.
4:37 is a typical Obama supporter, wanting to censor statements with which she disagrees.
You know, Michigan instituted such a wireless ban 2 years ago. It was repealed with little fanfare this fall.
Kash = HOT
Levmore = NOT
I smell an iPhone commercial...
Why bother going to class if you're going to spend the whole time on the internet?
Kash = Lat
Same person.
Internet Addiction is a bona fide disease, just like drug addiction. As a city university presumably run and funded by the municipal government, the University of Chicago could get hit with a huge lawsuit over this.
I couldn't care less if Kash = Lat, I want to see more pictures of the alleged "Kash"!
1. I like Kash's pictures. I'm guessing 3:58 is a not-attractive female.
2. "Many students say that the visual images on classmates’ screens are diverting, and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so" = busted in class not knowing the material and playing on the internet, and blamed it on the guy next to them for causing the distraction. Loser.
1. I like Kash's pictures. I'm guessing 3:58 is a not-attractive female.
2. "Many students say that the visual images on classmates’ screens are diverting, and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so" = busted in class not knowing the material and playing on the internet, and blamed it on the guy next to them for causing the distraction. Loser.
Why bother going to class if you can't spend the whole time on the internet?
You can take the internet, I can't play poker anyway...
everyone i know at u of c hates levmore. he has accomplished nothing besides his worthless "shadow law" approach to tort law.
he looks like a walking phallus.
he also used to be an enormous fatty, and he actually believed that his failure to get the deanship at uva was due to his girth.
It is not an anti-internet policy, it is an anti-access policy.
FIRE LEVMORE NOW
Students don't spend the entire class on the internet. Many read it when the professor has to spend 10 minutes entertaining some gunner's asinine hypothetical. Thank God I went to law school when I did: got in just after all the classrooms went wireless and got out just before this new trend of banning the internet in class.
Maybe Schools should start hiring professors who can actually TEACH! I know it's all about publishing but REALLY I'm at a Top 10 school - can't we find a way to get professors that can publish AND don't look like complete MORONS in front of the classroom. I wouldn't be fucking around on the internet so much if I didn't feel like every 1 hour class had only 10 minutes of discernible substance. I've got to do something to occupy my mind while professors confirm their self-importance.
When I attended Chicago, I attended and paid close attention in 80% of my classes. My decision to attend, and not to spend the class playing Minesweeper or Solitaire, had nothing to do with norms of etiquette. It was because, at the time, most of my professors were highly intelligent people with strong teaching skills, and I thought I was getting something valuable from attending and paying attention.
For the other 20% of my classes, I either did not attend or found other means of entertainment. This was because I was not learning from the professors' presentation.
When I attended the school, there was a strong aversion to the command-and-control model. Yet even at that time, then-Professor Levmore was propounding the need for professors to take attendence in class. This paternalistic approach to enforcing class room "attentiveness" runs contrary to the very values by which Chicago made its name. There is a simple solution if you want law students to pay attention -- hire professors who can teach. Chicago students are intelligent adults, and if they think they are getting something of value from attending and paying attention in class, they will do so.
Perhaps the virulent reaction Kashmir notes in the comment to Chicago's fall in the USA Today rankings stems in part from Dean Levmore's failure to do so. (And note that, before Levmore became Dean, Chicago was ranked 4th and closing on 3rd, so the fall is bigger than reflected in just the last year.)
Every indication is that, as a Dean, Levmore has shown a tyrranical, dictatorial, and patenalistic style that has wrought great harm on the institution.
A list of the great teachers I had in school illustrates the point:
David Currie (R.I.P.)
Cass Sunstein (now at Harvard)
Adrien Vermuele (now at Harvard)
Steven Shulhofer (now at NYU)
Dan Kahan (now at Yale)
Jack Goldsmith (now at Harvard)
Al Alschuler (now at Northwestern)
Barack Obama
Of those distinguished professors, all excellent teachers, only Obama even remains nominally affiliated with the school, and he hasn't taught since 2004. Geoff Stone and David Strauss are, in fairness, two remaining professors who excel at teaching.
But the decimation of the faculty under Levmore, and the failure to replace these losses with similarly qualified figures, speaks to a failure of leadership on Levmore's part. And while I can't speak to each professor's reason for depature, I do know for a fact that Levmore's heavy-handed style played a role in the departure decision for more than one of the professors on the list above.
This internet policy is the latest in a line of paternalistic decisions that is demeaning to the ability of law students to decide for themselves and should be the final nail in Levmore's tenure as Dean.
i was, of course, kidding about the magnificent mr. levmore. he is an amazing scholar, looks like a abercrombie model, and has had perfect 12-pack abs for at least three decades. god save the dean.
4:37 - oh, grow a pair. If you dont like it, ignore it.
For school with such a rep for economics it seems odd that they would forget that the student is the consumer.
Institutional mentality contagious and pervasive.
I am apoplectic and am not kidding:
FIRE DEAN LEVMORE NOW
5:09 and this "kash" show why people don't female lawyers seriously.
5:09 and this "kash" show why people don't take female lawyers seriously.
if God had meant for us to go without wireless during law school classes, he would have given us law professors who are capable of teaching!
i go to a school ranked somewhere in the 50s-60s, and it was interesting to see that of the 8-10 students first year who didn't bring laptops to class, all of them were in the top 10%. its funny that you dont really need to write every word down when you just pay attention the first time.
but thats soooo boring. I just bought 8 pairs of shoes.
5:57, Kash is (allegedly) not a lawyer.
More Kash!
This Dean is a large reason why I did not go to Chicago, even though they offered me a scholarship. His entire opening speech was about how Chicago Law students work harder than all other law students (like law school can't be bad enough), and how intellectual the atmosphere is. For example, instead of talking about football with a Chicago alum, you will talk about traffic lights and why "green is go, red is stop."
Went to NYU instead, where I work hard, got a great firm job, but had a life outside of law school.
P.S. And yes, I got into Columbia as well.
6:20 is a) telling truth about Dean's speech, (b) proves NYC is full of slackers.
Why are green lights green?
Kash = Lat with wig!
Both are HOT!
Internet in the classroom is a good thing. Take away the pacifier and students will start chiming in with their opinions and life experiences--you know, the way it was for those first few weeks during 1L. I take notes by hand because I can't trust myself to take notes with a computer in front of me--even "Legal Eagle Wedding Watch" is more interesting than the best professor.
Professors should either make class more relevant to grades and exams or more engaging. Most professors should be happy that students show up, given professors' general lack of classroom skills.
6:20 - I've worked hard, but what is so special about working ridiculously hard just so you can say you did so? Maybe if there was a purpose behind it, but I've learned plenty at NYU and got the firm job I wanted. Brag about the professors, the student body, or career opportunities. Don't brag about workload.
first
LOL at UC students "WE ARE SERIOUS LAW TALKIN' GUYS," "I FOUND THE INTERWEBS DISTRACTING," "I WISH I COULD GO TO UPENN!" etc.
Levmore is such a racist jerk. During the my 3 [long] years at UChicago, we had a weekly informal breakfast gathering where profs and students were supposed to eat bagels and interact. Levmore would make fake conversation with the same group of 5 boring, suburban white kids and avoid any asian, black, non-white students like the plague. He also tried to make us salute him in japanese at the start of each torts class.
I just don't get it -- if you don't want to listen in class, don't go to class. But if you are going to attend, what's the big deal in being expected to pay attention?
I have to say that I agree with Chicago's policy. Those commenters that are opposed to it are basically blaming the rampant internet use and tuning out on poor teaching. That's not the case, however. A law school class isn't interesting or effective because of the professor, it is interesting and effective because of the INTERACTION between the student and the professor.
I confess that I often tune out and surf the web during class. I do so because the temptation is irresistable, because I foolishly think I'm better at multitasking than I am, and because everyone else is doing it. These are stupid reasons. I wouldn't object if someone were to take it away.
Honestly, look around during one of your classes. It is like a room full of friggin zombies. It's pathetic. If the professor asks a question, he has to repeat it multiple times and then get a rambling incoherent answer. This isn't because he's a bad professor or because the student is just a slacker. It's because this is what laptops and the internet have turned law school classes into.
Kash is more than kind of adorable
It doesn't matter whether a class is interesting or the internet is distracting, the point it we are adults and we should be able to choose whether to use the internet or not, and we certainly should be expected to know when it is ok to do so and when it is not. I think the entire banning the internet policy is ridiculous and paternalistic. We pay for internet access, we should have it.
For those not in law school now, the ABA passed an 80% attendance rule a couple of years back. Some schools enforce it more heavily than others. So to an extent, you HAVE to be there, no matter how little you are actually getting out of it.
God Bless Al Gore's interweb and ebays!
5:39 - you have a point, but the previous generation of students could probably make a similar claim. Yale and Harvard have always poached and will always poach our profs because it's fertile hunting ground, and they will eventually succeed with a lot of them. Not to mention, it's very unfair to list Currie, and Sunstein left because he couldn't keep it in his pants, not because Chicago wouldn't match a Harvard offer.
Chicago does need to put more effort into recruiting new faculty, though. Wood, Posner, Easterbrook, etc, won't be around forever. I've been pleased with some of the up-and-comers (Samaha, Strahilevitz, etc) but H/Y will always be fishing in our pond, and it would be more of a complement if it didn't suck for us so much. Even though ATL is a festering pit of hatred for all schools, it still sucks to see this much venom directed at what is still an excellent (and now under-rated) school.
Kash, have my babies.
To be fair . . . I am not one of those people who browse the internet in class. However, when I'm in class and see others browsing, I then to do the same. In other words, this contagion ideas, as silly as it sounds, may actually have some bite. Of course, i don't show shop because the person next to me is shoe shopping. In my case I check the news or ATL.
As a U Chicago 2L I'd be fine with either of the two following choices:
1) Levmore can stfu and let us keep or internet; or
2) The school can refund us some tuition in exchange for this loss.
Fact is that we're losing a benefit that was heavily advertised to us back during admissions - look at how modern our classes are, yada yada yada - and we should get some compensation for it. Of course they won't do this so Levmore should go back to "checking his blackberry" and letting us do whatever the heck we want.
I decided well before this happened that I was going to Penn (penn st-- whatever you DBags want to call it).
with the exception of one kid that apparently went off his meds, the people there generally seemed a hell of a lot more chill and happy. the ability to gchat certainly perpetuates that.
8:59 confuses me. You are not one of the people who browse the internet in class, but then you go on to describe the times when you do?
Thanks Saul, but making a personal promise not to check your blackberry so often isn't quite the same thing as disabling internet access, is it? How about from now on, in university meetings you force everyone in attendance to check their blackberry at the door, so there's no chance they can use it. How many professors or administrators would like that?
Much better hairdo these days:
http://www.nationalpress.org/info-url_nocat3513/info-url_nocat_show.htm?doc_id=113820
Much better hairdo these days:
http://www.nationalpress.org/info-url_nocat3513/info-url_nocat_show.htm?doc_id=113820
It's disrespectful to the professor teaching the class. Offering a baseline of respect is not a quid pro quo situation (as many students misguidedly suggest).
I'm not defending shitty professors; I'm not defending boring professors (although I'm suspect whenever a student describes a professor or a class as boring ... most times, this ends up being a student issue rather than a professor issue). Shitty professors exist and, yes, boring professors (however rarely) exist.
Deal with it. Or, attempt to correct the situation appropriately. But do not, therefore, feel entitled to disrespect the man or woman attempting to lead the class.
Personally, as a law student, I'm all for internet in the classroom: it makes my coming out on top of the curve that much easier. And, as a libertarian, I'm generally turned off by these paternalistic measures. However, this case presents an exception to my ideological rule.
Obviously, we have a lot of people who either have never been in FRONT of a classroom and had to put up with a bunch of jerks distracting the students who DO want to be there -- and the bunch of jerks themselves that have such little interest in the course, the instructor and their own development to feel the need to pay attention.
The solution is simple.
1. Computers should be allowed in the lecture ONLY to read/review/make notes. Period. No exceptions. Web surfing is an absolutely unacceptable distraction to the other students.
2. Shield and use Wireless blockers for the lecture halls. If people won't obey rules voluntarily, then make it more difficult to break them.
3. If students feel it isn't important to attend class (REALLY attend, not just to warm a seat and surf the web), give them the option of dropping the classes easily and without penalty. There are always more people needed to work at McDonalds anyway. Nobody wants to hire someone who 'surfed' their way through college.