ADA Guidelines

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has said that it doesn’t expect regulations for accessibility for non-government websites until 2018. More than five years ago in 2010 the agency released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities and Public Accommodations. In summary, the DOJ is considering revising the regulation implementing title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in order to establish requirement for making the goods, services, facilities, privileges, accommodation or advantages offered by public accommodations via the Internet, specifically at sites on the World Wide Web (Web), accessible to individuals with disabilities.

 In a recent Statement of Regulatory Priorities the DOJ stated that, “The Department is including for disability nondiscrimination rulemaking initiative in its Regulatory plan,” among other things, “Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Governments.” However, it goes on to state that this and other priorities in the rule making agenda, “will be included in the Departments long-term actions for fiscal years 2017 and 2018.” 

Trying to determine how accessible your campus is can be a daunting task. There are so many business and educational processes to assess, and it will encompass practically every unit within the institution. How do you even begin to determine if you have processes defined and resources allocated to build an accessible IT infrastructure?

One of the recent projects I got to help lead with the EDUCAUSE IT Accessibility Constituent Group was the creation the IT Accessibility Risk Statements and Evidence document. This resource was created by higher education accessibility experts from all over the country to help campus leaders begin to assess where their risks are in their IT accessibility implementations.

For $9 a month Scribd subscribers can read unlimited ebook titles. However, District Court Judge William Sessions ruled last Thursday that the ADA Lawsuit filed against Scribd will be moving forward. While the service is popular it is not accessible to people who are blind or have low vision.

Scribd’s argument was: "the ADA does not apply to website operators whose goods or services are not made available at a physical location open to the public.” However, Judge Session disagreed stating, "The fact that the ADA does not include web-based services as a specific example of a public accommodation is irrelevant because such services did not exist when the ADA was passed and because Congress intended the ADA to adapt to changes in technology."

The Department of Justice (DOJ) published a proposed rule. The rule is to expand the definition of the term “disability” under Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The revision is an effort to make the Title II, which applies to the state and local governments, and Title III, which applies to public accommodations, regulatory definition of the term “disability” consistent with the definition of that term contained in the ADA Amendment Act of 2008.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking states that post-secondary educational institutions and entities that provide test administration services due to the increased number of people who will have qualifying disabilities are the public accommodations to be impacted, entitling them to test-taking accommodations.  The DOJ estimates the monetary impact of the rule on public accommodations to be $382 million over the next eleven years.

Kathy Wahlbin, CEO and Founder of Interactive Accessibility and invited expert for the W3C WCAG 2.0 Working Group, Mobile Accessibility Task Force and WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology Task Force, is presenting tonight at PixelMEDIA in Portsmouth New Hampshire. Kathy will discuss how the accessibility is changing and impacting today’s businesses. In addition, she will look at some of the coding and testing techniques that help bring websites and other digital content into compliance with WCAG 2.0 and Section 508.

Register for the event right away.

An interim settlement agreement between the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and private plaintiffs and the state of Texas, will enable Texans with intellectual and other developmental disabilities live in community settings rather than nursing facilities.

The litigation alleges that Texas has not complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. and other federal statutes in ways leading to the needless institutionalization of people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities in nursing facilities. More on Texas settling the disabilities lawsuit.

“Be more like us,” says Secretary of State John Kerry describing the message delivered by The Disabilities Treaty. The Treaty is intended to open the world to Americans with disabilities. Ratification will help provided Americans with the same protection globally that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides them on US soil. Moreover, it will enable Americans with disabilities to participate fully in the global economy. Read more about the The Disabilities Treaty.

Limited funds and lingering bias are responsible for the difficulties that persist in implementing portions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law by George H.W. Bush in 1990. States struggle to fully transition individuals with disabilities out of institutional living. Click here for the full Report on how states struggle to comply with the ADA.

In 2010 the Department of Justice announced that it would issue proposed regulations governing the accessibility of websites of public accommodations and state and local governments. This was slated to be announced in December of 2013. The DOJ has now pushed back the announcement for public accommodations by 3 months to March of 2014. The proposed rule for state and local governments was supposed to be announced this month but has been pushed to November 2013. Read more about the delay for the ADA.

In addition to reevaluating the tools used to judge the accessibility of a website, the accessibility guidelines mandated by the US government, known as Section 508, will include a requirement for human-based testing. Read more about how human-based testing is required in the Section 508 refresh.