This article is part of a series, "Organizing Against the Machines."
House Bill 1859, signed into law by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on August 15, 2025, marks a turning point in how public higher education responds to the rise of artificial intelligence. At a moment when algorithms can draft lectures, grade assignments, and simulate human conversation, Illinois chose a different path, one that affirms the irreducible importance of human educators. H.B. 1859 protects learning by keeping humans “in the loop.” This is vital not only for the quality of students’ educational experiences but also for the long-term health of Illinois’s community colleges and the communities they serve.
The legislation did not emerge in a vacuum. It was initiated through the Cook County College Teachers Union, which represents five thousand faculty and staff members across the fourteen community colleges of Cook County, a densely populated county that includes Chicago. Building on members’ concerns, the union partnered with Democratic Representative Abdelnasser Rashid, co-chair of the General Assembly’s Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Rashid served as the architect of H.B. 1859, guiding it through the House. In the Senate, Democratic Senator Mike Porfirio took up the mantle as chief sponsor and shepherded the bill to final passage. The process through which the legislation came about is a textbook example of how educators and lawmakers can work actively together to shape technology policy in a way that keeps learning and community needs in focus.
H.B. 1859 amends the Illinois Community College Act to establish a clear standard: Every course offered by an Illinois community college district must be taught by a credentialed human instructor. Specifically, it requires that the faculty member who teaches a course meet disciplinary standards and any applicable rules adopted by the Illinois Community College Board. At the same time, the law prohibits the use of artificial intelligence as the sole source of instruction in lieu of a faculty member. AI systems can be used to augment instruction, but they cannot replace the human educator at the center of the class. In stipulating these labor safeguards, H.B. 1859 protects accreditation, upholds academic standards, and defends the ethical core of higher education while still leaving room for thoughtful, responsible innovation.
At the heart of this law is a simple premise: Human-to-human interaction is the core of learning. When students enroll in a college course, they are not simply purchasing access to prepackaged content. They are entering an academic community built on discourse, analysis, and shared inquiry. They meet instructors who ask follow-up questions when a student hesitates, who reframe a concept when confusion appears on a face, and who connect course material to current events, local issues, or the lived experiences of the class. This dynamic, relational, context-aware work is the essence of teaching. Artificial intelligence, although it can mimic the surface of that interaction, cannot participate in it as an accountable, reflective human being.
Moreover, faculty are not just information delivery devices. They are participants in evolving bodies of scholarship and practice. A history professor brings years of research, archival work, and engagement with historiographical debates into a classroom discussion of the American Revolution. A nursing instructor draws on clinical experience and current practice guidelines to help students reason through a complex patient scenario. A computer science faculty member can situate a coding exercise within debates about algorithmic bias or data privacy. These contributions arise from being embedded in disciplinary communities—reading new research, attending conferences, consulting for industry, collaborating with colleagues. Generative AI systems can remix and reproduce discourse, but they are not themselves members of these communities. They do not hold responsibility for the state of a discipline, nor do they feel the weight of professional and ethical norms. Keeping human instructors “in the loop” means preserving this deep, living connection between classroom learning and the ongoing conversations that shape each field.
H.B. 1859 also acknowledges a foundational truth about higher education: The credibility of college credits rests on the disciplinary expertise and professional preparation of the faculty members who award them. A transcript is more than a list of course titles. It is a record of judgments made by qualified educators that a student has met specific learning outcomes rooted in disciplinary standards. Those judgments carry weight because the faculty hold accredited degrees, professional licensure, and recognized scholarly or industry credentials.
H.B. 1859 must also be understood against the backdrop of long-term budgetary pressures in Illinois higher education. After years of underfunding, community college administrators are under intense pressure to “do more with less,” which too often translates into reducing support services, cutting corners, and “streamlining” the learning process in ways that erode quality. The danger is that fiscal stress will be used to justify replacing faculty members (especially adjuncts and instructors in developmental or high-enrollment courses) with AI-driven platforms. H.B. 1859 ensures that financial pressures cannot be used as a pretext to hollow out the faculty core of community colleges, reaffirming instead that genuine efficiency must begin with protecting the integrity of teaching and the supports that allow students to learn.
Illinois community colleges, like community colleges across the country, serve students who are often first-generation, working-class, and racially and linguistically diverse. Many are underprepared academically, juggling work and caregiving responsibilities, or returning to school after years away. These students come to community colleges not just for content but for guidance, support, and the chance to build trusting relationships with educators who see their potential. Faculty members are frequently the first to notice when a student’s attendance slips, when their work quality suddenly drops, or when they seem withdrawn during class discussions. They are often the first to ask, “Are you okay?” and to connect a student with counseling, tutoring, library services, disability services, food pantries, or emergency aid. This caring presence cannot be replaced by AI. The ethical and emotional labor of noticing, reaching out, and listening belongs to human beings and cannot be automated.
Finally, this legislation invites us to think more broadly about how critical decisions are made in public institutions. Teaching and credit assignment are high-stakes, consequential acts. They determine whether a student qualifies for financial aid, transfers successfully to a four-year university, earns a professional license, or advances in a career. As AI diffuses across our public services into legal systems, health care, and other domains, we face a key societal question: Which tasks are so sensitive, so ethically complex, and so tied to human flourishing that they must remain in human hands?
In the long run, the health of Illinois’s community colleges, like all institutions, depends on this alignment between responsibility and authority. Institutions that outsource their core mission to AI not only risk failing in delivering their core service but also risk a crisis of legitimacy. For those of us in community colleges, it is important that students and the public be able to trust that courses are more than cleverly packaged content. They must know that behind each syllabus stands a faculty member prepared to teach, mentor, evaluate, and, ultimately, care.
Troy A. Swanson is a teaching and learning librarian and library department chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He serves as legislative chair of Cook County College Teachers Union, AFT Local 1600.