Making sure a web site and its content are accessible to as many people as possible is not only ethically responsible and good business, it is also legally required. Accessibility has legal implications drawn directly from the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and civil rights law, including Section 508 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. As stated on the U.S General Services Administration web site:
“Section 508 may not apply to your website, but other laws likely do, so your website should be accessible…Regardless of whether or not federal regulations apply to your website, designing for all users is a best practice, and will help your organization more effectively meet the needs of all your customers.” – U.S General Services Administration
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act [pdf] of 1973 is the first civil rights legislation in the United States designed to protect individuals with disabilities. The act states:
“No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States should solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded in the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
It took for five years, three presidential administrations, nationwide demonstrations, a take over of a federal building in San Francisco, California, and massive community support to get it passed into law. Section 504 was the first piece of civil rights legislation to promise an end to segregation, an end to employment discrimination, and an end to separate but equal facilities for millions of disabled Americans. The Regulations implementing Section 504 were finally written and passed during the Carter Administration. – Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
This award-winning 18-minute documentary video, captures the drama and emotions of the historic civil rights demonstration of people with disabilities in 1977, resulting in the signing of the 504 Regulations, the first Federal Civil Rights Law protecting people with disabilities. Includes contemporary news footage and news interviews with participants and demonstration leaders.
Want to view the same video in a different language? The video has been translated into the following languages, all with open cations.
Attribution: Google.org (2015, Jul. 24) (audio description) Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities | ADA 25th Anniversary
Attribution: Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (2015, Jun. 30) The Americans with Disabilities Act, Signing Ceremony, July 26, 1990
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention roughly one in four Americans live with some kind of disability. The point of the ADA is to prevent discrimination against a quarter of the population and to codify the need for reasonable accommodations. (Cox, 2019)
Title II of the ADA 1990
Under Title II of the ADA[pdf] , companies cannot discriminate against disabled people “in the full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations.” But when the law was passed in 1990, the internet did not have the place in our lives it does now, leaving a large gray area over what defines a public space in terms of an accessible website.
Title II of the ADA requires that communications to people with disabilities be equally as effective as communications with non-disabled people in their timeliness, accuracy, and delivery method. Title II applies to goods, services, and activities provided by state and local governments, including public education institutions.
The ADA does not have any specific technical requirements requiring websites to be accessible. However, there are a number of cases where organizations and businesses that are considered to be “places of public accommodation” have been sued due to the inaccessibility of their websites. The Department of Justice (DOJ) made the following statement in 2010:
“There is no doubt that the Internet sites of state and local government entities are covered by Title II of the ADA. Similarly, there is no doubt that the websites of recipients of federal financial assistance are covered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The DOJ has affirmed the application of these statutes to Internet sites…in numerous agreements with state and local governments and recipients of federal financial assistance.”
Title III of the ADA
Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of accommodation, the definition of which includes businesses, places of entertainment, the offices of service providers, and some private educational institutions. There is a proposed revision to Title III of the ADA (Federal Register, Volume 75, Issue 142, July 26, 2010) [pdf] that would, if passed, require the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) be followed to make web content accessible under the ADA. WCAG was created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community, whose mission is to develop international Web standards which can be used by individuals, organizations, and governments internationally. What most organizations and governments are doing though, is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) even thought the revision process has been stalled.
Section 508
In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. The law (29 U.S.C § 794 (d) applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.
Any company that sells to the U.S. Government must also provide products and services that comply with section 508 (Section 1194.22 of the Rehabilitation Act.)
Explaining relationship between the ADA, Sec 504 and Sec 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA are sometimes confused. There are many parallels between both but there are some fundamental differences. While both laws prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities, the Rehabilitation Act covers Federal agencies and entities receiving Federal financial assistance. The ADA applies to:
state and local governments,
public accommodations,
commercial facilities,
transportation,
telecommunications, and
the U.S. Congress.
What is the difference between Sections 504 and 508?
Section 508 is one method of ensuring Section 504 compliance. Generally, under Section 504, agencies must provide individuals with disabilities meaningful access to their programs, section 508 requires Federal agencies to make electronic and information technology they use etc. accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Legal Cases
Currently many schools and businesses are being sued because their sites and content are not accessible. In 2015, Harvard and MIT were sued by advocates for the deaf for falling to caption online lectures, courses and other educational materials. Harvard settled in 2019 agreeing to “caption Harvard-produced content posted on or after Dec. 1, 2019. For pieces of content posted earlier, Harvard will provide captions within five business days. Harvard will also provide captions for livestreams of University-wide events.”
In 2016 the University of California, Berkeley was found by the DOJ’s civil rights division to have violated disability law[pdf] by not providing the appropriate accommodations for its own free video lectures and podcasts. Beyoncé isn’t even above the ADA. In January 2019, a class action lawsuit against Beyoncé was filed, claiming her website violated the ADA because it employs an exclusively visual interface and those with vision issues cannot browse the site and make online purchases without the assistance of a sighted companion. (Cullins, 2019).
The 2019 Domino’s v. Robles decision brought some clarity to whether the ADA applies to digital spaces, leaving intact a lower ruling finding that “the ADA does, indeed, apply to digital space.” (Cox, 2019)
Current Fights and Activities
Attribution: [DREDF] (2015, Sept 20) The John R. Lewis Intersectionality Award.
