Colleges sued over website accessibility
50 Colleges Hit With ADA Lawsuits
- A blind man is taking 50 colleges to court, alleging their websites are inaccessible to people with disabilities.
- The 50 lawsuits, filed in November, say the colleges are in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as their websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. Camacho uses a screen reader and said he experienced barriers when trying to access the colleges' websites.
- We tend to worry a little bit when we see one individual filing a bunch of lawsuits at once like this, because it’s not usually the best way to get a good result and enter into a good dialogue with the institutions,” he said. “Our approach is usually to go to litigation only after all other approaches have failed.”
- Filing a lawsuit as a first move “puts universities on the defensive and is automatically adversarial,” said Danielsen. But he added “it’s not necessarily a bad thing that someone who isn’t attending a university yet is doing some advocacy.”
- theBurton Blatt Institute, which aims to advance the participation of people with disabilities in society.
- “It’s beside the point whether there are 50 or 1,000 lawsuits,” said Blanck. “These cases are reflective of a larger systemic problem -- that there is a lack of a strong commitment by many institutions to try to be as inclusive as possible.”
- It’s been almost 30 years since the ADA was passed, and we should have made more progress, said Blanck. “Way back in the '90s I was asked to testify whether or not websites would be subject to the ADA,” he said. “There is no question that universities have been on notice for a long time.”