Accessibility in the courts
Looks like another accessibility court case will test the accessibility policies of the University of Houston.
IHE’s take seems to simplify the process UH asks students and faculty to follow for accommodation. They argue that UH policies allow faculty to pretty much opt out of accomodating disabled students, which would obviously be a problem. I’m not so sure that’s the case; it’s easy to read a policy and make conclusions about its implementation, but doing so runs the risk of overstating the problem. Regardless, the UH policy has another clause which stuck out to me:
If the faculty member agrees to provide academic accommodations, he/she and the requesting student will be asked to provide feedback at the end of the semester on the manageability and effectiveness of those accommodations.
So if you do accommodate a student, you have to do paperwork. Not a good way to encourage faculty. Also, why no paper trail for refused requests?
In other news, some traction recently in the NFB v Target case; there was a hearing July 24; and Jim Thatcher has some declarations posted. Not much other information available; I’ve emailed NFB and asked for an update.
It’s debateable whether either of these cases will result in long-term precedent. The UH case seems to test one specific policy, not so much the definition of “accommodation” that web accessibility has been wrestling with. And NFB v Target was filed under California law. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
