What Is The University Of Chicago Anthropic Partnership? A Parent-Teacher Breaks Down What It Means For Students
I was stirring oatmeal at 7 a.m. last month, half-watching my 14-year-old tie lopsided cleats for school, when my older daughter’s text popped up. Lila’s a sophomore at University of Chicago, studying comparative lit and creative writing. The text read: “Whole campus is losing it over this Anthropic partnership. None of us know what’s actually going on. Did you see anything?”
I put the spoon down, pulled up the UChicago student paper, scrolled a few campus discussion threads. By the time I called her back 10 minutes later, I got why no one was making sense of it. The timing was off, the details were nonexistent, and everyone from first-years to tenured profs was left guessing.
Lila called me from the steps of the Regenstein Library, wind blowing in the background. She said her 19th century lit prof had opened class that morning by saying he wouldn’t be using any Anthropic tools for the rest of the semester, in protest. Half the class was planning to walk out of the AI ethics symposium later that week, because the lead organizer was one of the admins who’d signed off on the deal. “No one will answer the simple questions,” she said. “Is Anthropic paying them? Do they get to read all our essays that we upload to the course site? Do we even get anything out of this besides more admin buzzwords?”
As a high school English teacher, I’ve already been through the dance of public schools cutting deals with AI companies without telling anyone, so I know this kind of confusion isn’t unique to UChicago. What stood out about this deal was how perfectly it fits the description: ill-timed, inscrutable. The university had just wrapped a 10-week grad student worker strike a week before the announcement. Grad students were fighting for living wages and better health care, and admin had dragged their feet on negotiations, refused to meet most demands. Then suddenly, they drop a multi-year partnership with one of the biggest AI companies in the world, with no heads up to anyone on campus. The rumored price tag was in the millions, which stung even more.
The inscrutable part is just as bad. The original announcement was three paragraphs long. It said UChicago would get access to Anthropic’s Claude models for “research and educational innovation.” No details on what data Anthropic can access, no disclosure of financial terms, no mention of any faculty or student input before the deal was signed. When students pushed for a public town hall to ask questions, admin scheduled it during fall break, when half the campus was already gone. That’s when frustration boiled over.
My first instinct when Lila was panicking was to brush it off, tell her to focus on her midterms, that admin deals don’t affect her day-to-day that much. But I caught myself, because that’s what I hate when adults say that to my high school students when they’re upset about school policy. Their frustration is valid, even if it doesn’t change the deal tomorrow. So instead I asked her three specific questions, the same ones I ask my own students when they’re confused about sudden school changes: What do your trusted professors say about this? What’s the one thing you’re most worried about for your own work? Is there anything small you can do to address that worry if you want to?
That turned into concrete steps pretty quickly. Lila said the thing she cared most about was her unpublished creative writing, which she uploads to the university’s course portal for professor feedback. She didn’t want that work used to train Claude without her permission or compensation. I told her to pull up the university’s student privacy page—almost every college has one, and most students never look at it—and opt out of all non-required data sharing for third-party research partnerships. She did it 12 minutes later, while waiting for her next class, and texted me a screenshot saying it was done. That’s a step any student at any college can take, that most people don’t even know exists.
For parents who find themselves in this spot, with a kid upset over a sudden college partnership or policy change, you don’t have to solve the whole problem. You don’t have to pick a side in the campus protest, or understand every legal detail of a 100-page contract. Just asking those three simple questions helps your kid sort through what they actually care about, instead of getting swept up in generalized anger or anxiety. And pointing them toward the opt-out page is a low-lift fix that addresses the most common personal concern: control over their own work.
As a teacher, I’ve already added a 10-minute section to my senior college prep unit this year, walking students through how to find their future college’s data sharing opt-out forms before they move in. Most colleges don’t advertise this option, so most students never think to look until something like this happens.
A month later, the situation’s still unresolved. Students filed an open records request to get the full contract released, and admin has dragged their feet on releasing it. Lila goes to the weekly info table outside the student center once a week, when she doesn’t have class. She still turns in her essays, studies for midterms, and gets apple cider with her friends on the quad every weekend. This isn’t some big campus crisis that’s derailed her education, but it’s a clear example of how most colleges are handling AI partnerships right now: behind closed doors, without asking the people who are actually affected what they think. I still don’t know why UChicago admin thought this was a good idea to roll out right after a bitter strike. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the open records request. But I do know that teaching kids to ask questions, and helping them take small steps to protect their own work, is more useful than any generic statement about AI in higher ed. For now, that’s enough.
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