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The Legal Context: Equitable Access

Take your pick of laws and acts, people with disabilities are protected by numerous pieces of legislation to assure their right to equitable access to online education because of their disability. There is a burden on program designers to ensure students with disabilities can easily access the online course content. These various laws and policies prohibit students from being denied access to that education on the basis of economic status, race, sex, national origin, limited English language ability, or disability. It’s not only the lawful thing to do but morally, it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Your Legal Responsibilities

Programs that do not receive a dollar of federal funding, are required to abide by several civil rights laws.  If your school is a part of a school or institution that receives any federal education funds, either directly or on a flow-through basis, your program is required to be in compliance with all the federal civil rights laws.  

North American Council for Online Learning report “Access and Equity in Online Classes and Virtual Schools, November, 2007” does a great job of summarizing the various laws and acts that provide the basis for non-discrimination in education including online learning. http://www.inacol.org/resources/docs/NACOL_EquityAccess.pdf

What's the Big Deal about Section 508

Section 508 of the Reauthorized Rehabilitation Act of 1998 is a piece of legislation intended to ensure that electronic and information technology purchased by the Federal sector can be accessed and used by individuals with disabilities, whether these individuals are Federal employees or members of the public. Private industry vendors, who want to sell information technology to Federal agencies must now ensure that their products or services are accessible for disabled users that is "equivalent or greater" to the access available to other users; vendors must prove their compliance with the standards of Section 508 or risk losing bids to competitors who can provide compliant technologies. Most of the burden of proof is on the vendor.

Utah State University, Center for Persons with Disabilities says it the best:

Influence of Section 508

Although limited to federal agencies, Section 508 (http://webaim.org/articles/laws/usa/rehab.php#influence) is an extremely influential piece of legislation. There are at least 4 reasons why this is so.

  1. Section 508 provided the first-ever US federal accessibility standard for the Internet. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines existed prior to this; however, these guidelines created by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) were not intended to be written as standards. Plus, these guidelines came from a voluntary international body with no regulatory power.
  2. This section provides compliance language that could be monitored at a distance. As stated earlier, guidelines did exist, but not in statutory language. Section 508 outlines binding, enforceable standards that must be adhered to in order for E&IT products to be accessible to persons with disabilities.
  3. State governments may be held accountable for complying with Section 508. All states receive funding under the Assistive Technology Act of 1998. To gain access to this funding, each state must assure the federal government they will implement all conditions of Section 508 within their state entities (including higher education). Many states have codified Section 508 to be state law (e.g., Arizona, Nebraska, and Wisconsin), which requires state institutions to comply with these requirements.
  4. Businesses must comply with Section 508 when supplying Electronic and Information Technology goods and services to the federal government. The influence of web accessibility on business and industry is more significant when the demands of a client, or potential client, like the US federal government, must be met.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of handicap in the admission of treatment of students, and in most employment practices. Intuitions, agencies, or employers receiving federal funds are covered. Schools and education programs must be organized in such a way as to allow handicapped student to participate with other students in schools, classes, or activities from which they can benefit.
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 2004 (PL 108-446)

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation. IDEA governs how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education and related services to eligible infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.
http://idea.ed.gov/

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as amended

ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation or public services. Public and private schools are covered by this Act.
http://www.ada.gov/pubs/ada.htm

Title VI, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Agencies and institutions that receive such funds include state and local education agencies and their sub-recipients, vocational rehabilitation agencies, numerous colleges and universities, and other institutions such as libraries and museums. Discrimination against national origin minorities on the basis of limited English skills is also prohibited by Title VI case law. (See Lau v Nichols.)
http://www.ed.gov/policy/rights/reg/ocr/edlite-34cfr100.html

Equal Educational Opportunity Act

The EEOA prohibits specific discriminatory conduct, including segregating students on the basis of race, color or national origin, and discrimination against faculty and staff. Furthermore, the EEOA requires school districts to take action to overcome students’ language barriers that impede equal participation in educational programs.
http://www.maec.org/laws/eeo.html

Benefits and Problems of the Legal Approach

There are two benefits to having laws related to information technology and disabilities. First, it has become clear that people with disabilities need a law that will protect their rights and help to guarantee that their needs are met.  Second, content providers wanting to support the needs of people with disabilities previously have received numerous, different and sometimes conflicting directions as to what was needed.  Once the information technology accessibility requirements were spelled out by some authoritative organization (like the W3C), designers could take comfort in knowing more precisely what was expected from them.  Granted these laws are not always followed or enforced but they do provide a measuring stick for both the designer and the information technology user with a disability.

The problem is that designers resist being told what to do; we all resent being told what to do. Next, designers fear that solving accessibility issues for one special needs group will ultimately mean that another special needs groups will achieve a legislated requirement that results in yet another modification to their product. The concept of universal design urges designers to rethink the target audience for their product from the outset. Things designed for one purpose are frequently found to have unexpected uses by unexpected audiences (like audio captioning). If the target audience is thought of in broad enough terms, the need for after-market modification will be avoided.  This kind of design may require more forethought, but it has the potential of bringing out a higher level of creativity and a better design.