ADA Compliance — An Expensive Blunder
Universities are failing to comply with the American Disabilities Act by not captioning online videos. Lawsuits have been filed against multiple universities. Compliance cost money but with advancements in technology, captioning has become easier making excuses obsolete.
Education used to be simple. All you needed was a quiet classroom, a piece of chalk, a chalkboard, an engaged teacher and interested students. You would go home, open your textbook, do your homework and go back the day after.
Education used to be simple. All you needed was a quiet classroom, a piece of chalk, a chalkboard, an engaged teacher and interested students. You would go home, open your textbook, do your homework and go back the day after.
Nice and simple 🚶♂️
Today, most of the education experience is delivered online, partly or fully, using video content.
This is where it becomes tricky for the universities.
All video content published and hosted by US based universities are required to comply with the American Disabilities Act.
However, a significant number of universities are failing to comply.
Have a look at a few recent examples of law suits against American based universities. You can find an exhaustive list here.
Arizona State University
- Arizona State Settlement Agreement
- Advocates for the Blind Sue Arizona State U. Over Kindle Use
- Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online
- Lawsuit Over Kindle Navigation by Visually Impaired Settled
Florida State University
- $150k Settlement Reached in Blind Florida State Students’ E-Learning Suit
- Blind Florida State U. Students Sue Over E-Learning Systems
- Blind Students Sue Florida State University over Inaccessible Math Courses
Harvard University
- Deaf Advocates Sue Harvard, MIT For Better Webcast Captions
- Harvard & MIT Sued Over Lack of Captions
- Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses
Louisiana State University
- LTU Settles With U.S. Over Claims That It Violated Disabilities Act
- Louisiana Tech University Concerning Inaccessible Course Materials
MIT
- Harvard and MIT Face Lawsuit for Lack of Online Captioning
- NAD Sues Harvard and MIT for Discrimination in Public Online Content
Miami University
- Blind Student Sues Miami University over Alleged Discrimination
- Blind Student Files Discrimination Suit Against Miami University
Compliance cost money and for universities with thousands of video files it can seem like a daunting task. Adding captions to video content used to be a challenging task but with technological advances it has become 100x easier.
In this day and age there are really no excuses.
We know, because this is what we do, at Konch.
