ADA Guidelines

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.

The University of Texas at San Antonio launched the Americans with Disabilities Act Disability Resources at UTSA website to help UTSA move toward accessibility for all its members. The site is a result of collaboration by members of the UTSA ADA Accessibility Committee.

July 26, 2013 marks the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). On July 26, 1990 President George H. Bush signed the Act, giving civil rights protection to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. If you want to help celebrate, check out the ADA Anniversary website created by the Southeast ADA center, a member of the ADA National Network and a project of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University.

A student with a low vision disability sparked allegations that the University was in violation of the ADA. The student fell behind in coursework due to a lack of accessible course materials, prompting the student to dropout early in the quarter.

In a Justice Department announcement yesterday, it was said that a settlement was reached with Louisiana Tech University and the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System to remedy the alleged violations to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The University agreed to implement several policies that require they deploy learning technology, web pages and course material that meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA.

Read more about Louisiana Tech University adopting WCAG 2.0 level AA standard in a settlement with the Feds.

Read the Department of Justice Press Release here.