Last year the U.S. Justice Department reached a settlement with Louisiana Tech University and the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System to rectify concerns about alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The department maintained that the institution violated the law by using a version of an online learning product that was inaccessible to a blind student. The student’s lack of access to the course materials lasted nearly one month into the quarter and the student fell so far behind in his work that he had to drop the class.
The settlement also resolved similar complaints about another course in which the same student alleged he was not provided accessible course material for class discussions or exam preparations on time.
As part of the settlement, Louisiana Tech agreed to make significant changes to make materials more accessible to visually impaired students, including training instructors and administrators on ADA requirements and “deploy[ing] learning technology, web pages and course content that [was] accessible in accordance with” the guidelines.
The student also received more than $23,000 in damages from the university.
The Louisiana Tech case was just one of many instances in the last three or four years in which the federal government has gone after higher education institutions in an attempt to force them to be more compliant with ADA requirements.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights entered into an agreement with the South Carolina Technical College System, the state’s largest higher education system, to ensure that the websites of the system’s 16 colleges are accessible to people with disabilities. ADA settlements or consent agreements with the Justice Department or Department of Education have also been reached with other universities and organizations, including the University of Montana and the Law Schools Admissions Council.
More welcoming environment
