Web Accessibility: Old, New Legal Challenges

How did educational institutions reach this point, where they're suddenly vulnerable to increasing risk of legal action over issues of web accessibility? Especially when the issues were so well defined and understood?

Because laws and regulations have, until now, not explicitly addressed web accessibility, case law only caused more confusion, and fixing years of benign neglect is expensive.


The recent increase in legal activism initiated by advocacy groups adds another, unwelcome stressor in the perfect storm challenging educational institutions today. Steep losses in budgets and endowments following the market crash of 2008, fiscal constraints in state and federal governments, and global competitive challenges - all have college and university administrations nervously tracking enrollment numbers. Especially now, no institution wants to answer to a legal complaint of the violation of civil rights of persons with disabilities (so successfully employed, based on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act).

Add to this the increased activism of the U.S. Department of Justice. Last years' tenBroek conference may well be marked as the tipping point in web accessibility. In a speech at the tenBroek conference, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said:

[Covered entities] that do not consider accessibility in their Web site or product development will come to regret that decision, because we intend to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to technology and the worlds that technology opens up.
– AAG Thomas Perez, U.S. DoJ

To this, add new laws (ADA Amendments Act, 2008), updated regulations (Section 508 is being updated), and evolving standards (WCAG 2.0) that bring a new clarity and urgency to our institutions' obligations.

What a change from the early years of the brave new web. Laws written before the web existed were ambiguous in the context of digital media (indeed, was amazon.com a "public accommodation" under Title III?). Courts were snarled in debate about complainant qualifications for bona fide disability.

When risk of litigation seems low, it's not surprising that so many thought the sound business decision was to take a free pass on the expense of making their web and media assets accessible.

Well, it turns out that it probably wasn't the best business decision after all. So, what's the plan, now? We'll talk about that next.