In the face of rising usage of digital learning tools as a permanent fixture in instruction and growing pressure for schools to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a higher priority, many institutions are failing the most basic requirements for digital accessibility.
Noncompliance Issues
Despite the fact that higher education institutions are required by law to comply with accessibility standards, most institutions do not comply and are at risk. A recent article in the National Law Review highlights how complaints are concentrated in a few major areas and present the easiest targets for filing noncompliance lawsuits:
- Alt text for images: alternative text allows a vision-impaired person to understand graphics and images on a website
- Link text: text that allows a user to navigate web pages and links to other web pages, documents, and content
- Form labels: text that allows a user to understand forms on web pages
- Keyboard navigability: allows a user to navigate a website using a keyboard instead of a mouse
- Captions: for all video and audio content
- Proper headers, lists, and tables: functionality that allows a user to understand how the content is organized
- No flashing graphics: these have been known to cause seizures in certain individuals
Accommodating physical disabilities with ramps and automatic doors and other alternatives is highly visible, and most institutions have complied with the law. However, digital access compliance lags behind and worsened during the pandemic as online learning became the norm.
Now that colleges and universities are utilizing more third-party software providers for both curriculum and course management functions, institutions need to add an additional level of review before they adopt new digital programs and tools at either the faculty or network levels. Some of the questions for digital vendors include:
- Do vendor contracts provide ADA accommodations?
- Can the vendors deliver compliance?
- Are institutions indemnified?
- Does the faculty have the skills to deliver accommodations?
Potential solutions include either using third-party accessibility tools that integrate with the institutions’ website and resolve the most common accessibility issues, or purchasing a learning management platform that has the required accessibility features already built-in.
The risks of noncompliance
There have been a significant number of lawsuits filed against colleges and universities in recent years. Law Review eports that founder and co-chair of the Michigan Alliance for Special Education, Marcie Lipsett, filed more than 2,400 web accessibility complaints against schools and districts. In 2018, Jason Camacho, a blind Brooklyn, New York resident, filed lawsuits against 50 colleges for their lack of accessibility after he was unable to access the schools’ information with his assistive device. After one school challenged the suit and lost, other schools settled out of court. Noncompliance lawsuits have also occurred at prominent universities, such as Harvard and Syracuse, and are becoming more common.
AAAtraq, a compliance identification and management system vendor, reviewed more than 2,000 higher education home pages and found that 96 percent were noncompliant. The three most common violations were:
- Missing or incorrect alt text to interpret images on a web page
- Missing or inaccurate link text to navigate a website or link to a we page, document, or video
- Missing or improperly described form labels preventing users with disabilities to understand the information
The evaluation team at AAAtraq found that 13 percent of these institutions had a very high risk of being targeted for noncompliance lawsuits because of the extent of the accommodation failures; 48 percent were classified as high risk; and only 4 percent were classified as low risk.
Both the shift to a greater dependence on digital programs and the rising call for equity and inclusion are driving digital accommodation to higher visibility for students. With so many colleges and universities at risk, it’s time to review and comply with the existing laws.