7 ms·

Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Lack of Closed Captions

45 points by lsh123 10y ago

Eridrus 10y ago
Initially I was quite confused about why the ADA/Rehabilitation Act applied to Harvard/MIT. It seemed like it was largely about employers and federal agencies, but at least the Rehabilitation Act covers "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance", so I'm guessing that's why it applied to edX, though I wonder if it would apply if edX was an entirely separate entity that licensed the content from Harvard/MIT, or if they would still have an obligation to provide captions when licensing their content.
- DanBC 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990#Title_III.E2.80.94public_accommodations_.28and_commercial_facilities.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac... > Under Title III, no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of disability with regards to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation. Public accommodations include most places of lodging (such as inns and hotels), recreation, transportation, education, and dining, along with stores, care providers, and places of public displays. [...] > The statutory definition of "readily achievable" calls for a balancing test between the cost of the proposed "fix" and the wherewithal of the business and/or owners of the business. Thus, what might be "readily achievable" for a sophisticated and financially capable corporation might not be readily achievable for a small or local business. It's a 25 year old law. I don't have much sympathy for large organisations that are still choosing to discriminate against disabled people.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    How exactly are they perpetrating an unjust or prejudicial treatment of the differently abled on the basis of them being differently abled?
    - DanBC 10y ago
      They have chosen to not make the material accessible to deaf people, even though laws around closed captioning equipment started coming in 25 years ago (more recent changes include Internet streaming), and even though the ADA is 25 years old. There's no excuse to not know about it. They knew about it (because they provide reasonable adjustments to very many students all the time, and they have departments to do so), but they chose to ignore it. It is clearly, unambiguously, discrimination. It might be legal (for the reasons I quoted around practicability), but that legality does not stop it being discriminatory.
      - davidivadavid 10y ago
        It seems like what you're saying in your first paragraph supports the idea that what they're doing is wrong because it's illegal. But then you do a 180 and say it's wrong because it's immoral. Obviously, it could be both, but even if the first argument is kind of a "duh" it seems more cogent than going back and forth between those two positions (as many people seem to do in the thread).
        DanBC 10y ago
        I'm not good at communicating. Society decided it was immoral to discriminate against people with disabilities. We tried asking nicely, and got ignored, and so we passed laws to drive change. Those laws were made some time ago, and while it takes time for change to happen we've had long enough for people to bring things into compliance with those laws. This is especially true for large well funded organisations producing new material. There's not much excuse for a large well funded organisation, who is well aware of reasonable adjustments, to not make new material accessible. Arguments against making material accessible are "it's too hard" or "it's too expensive". That's covered by the law (I included reference to it in my post). But the fact that we still don't have useful speech-to-text or good transcription shows the contempt much of the tech industry has for people with disabilities. See also the choice to exclude people by choosing pale grey text on a bright white background. (Note that this doesn't just exclude people with disability levels of eyesight loss, but also people with mild visual loss).
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Thank you, I missed Title III.
mwnivek 10y ago
This article is from Feb. 12, 2015 Original discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798
calimac 10y ago
this is a joke and Like the ADA in many ways will oppress further exposure of free education due to increasing the cost. This is absurd.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I used to be skeptical of the ADA but on a recent trip to France my girlfriend broke her foot and I had to push here around in a wheelchair. I realized how difficult life can be for disabled people when elevators are not working or a curb doesn't have a ramp. These are all very simple things and don't cost that much in comparison to other features of the building. Since then I am a strong supporter of the ADA.
miranda_rights 10y ago
So if I understand correctly, this has nothing to do with the students attending these schools and instead concerns the course materials made free to the public. I don't know -- I understand that it must not be helpful for deaf students, but it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit. What does the NAD expect to have happen?
- jordonwii 10y ago
  > it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit. Indeed. That's exactly what happened at UC Berkeley, once news of these lawsuits got out. We used to have all of our class lectures available free to the public, but now they're restricted only to students.
  - endswapper 10y ago
    I see that as an embarrassing result for UC Berkeley and any institution that follows suit. Clearly, there is value to making the material available, otherwise it would not have been posted in the first place. Discriminating against a few or against everyone because of a negligible cost is a failure. Furthermore, the fact that these considerations are not at the forefront of people's minds when releasing materials reinforces the merits of the lawsuit and the law.
    - rhaps0dy 10y ago
      > Discriminating against a few or against everyone because of a negligible cost is a failure. It's not a negligible cost to transcribe every single phrase the lecturer utters, for hours and hours and hours of lessons. Would it be better if the captions were generated by Youtube? Come on, that system is not good enough yet.
      - endswapper 10y ago
        Negligible is a relative terms, which is why I used it. My school has an annual operating budget in excess of $100MM. It's a small school in the Midwest. They could slice something off to accommodate the closed-captioning. I worked in post-production in Los Angeles and Manhattan and I have a reference for closed-captioning service fees. They could do it, or even better they could hire a person (maybe more) full-time and save money. A technology solution that improves access for everyone sounds like a great starting point for a startup.
throwow34393 10y ago
This absolutely crazy.
- awqrre 10y ago
  It stinks but you probably would not think so if you absolutely needed the closed caption.
  - thesimpsons1022 10y ago
    no one "needs" it. its free lectures online that are posted from the goodwill of the schools, which have no real incentive to do it. all of a sudden if they have to CC them they probably would rather not post them anymore and now thousands of people will get screwed over.
  - colllectorof 10y ago
    There are formulas drawn, I could attempt reading lips and I could try using speech recognition software. Alternative: they pull down all the courses and no one gets anything.
    - guitarbill 10y ago
      > I could try using speech recognition software I agree with your point, however speech recognition likely resulted in the mentioned "inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned" videos ;)
  - rhaps0dy 10y ago
    There's no reason to deny other people of the free lessons, other than green envy. You can get the material anyways from the recommended course books, which are probably available in the public library at request. Or the course notes in the course's web page.
    - awqrre 10y ago
      It almost always incurs a cost to provide convenience to the handicaps which is why laws have been created so that they are threated equally... For example, do you really need to be able to access this store with your wheel chair? probably not, you could use Amazon.
endswapper 10y ago
"The DOJ counters that the disability discrimination laws have clear jurisdiction over video on the internet, and that closed captions are required to make videos accessible to deaf or hard of hearing students.[0]" "Harvard and MIT both requested a Motion to Stay or Dismiss the cases on the grounds that current accessibility law doesn’t explicitly require universities to caption video on the web. In June, the US Department of Justice weighed in on the issue in a statement of interest to the court. The USDOJ argued in favor of the NAD and urged the judge to deny the Motion to Stay of Dismiss. Judge Robertson agreed. That means that, barring an objection from the District Judge, the lawsuit will proceed without delay.[1]" [0] http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-in-web-accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/ http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-in... [1] http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-web-accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/ http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-to-...
jasode 10y ago
If this causes a chilling effect such that universities find it easier or less costly to withhold the free lectures, it means the net effect on society from ADA lawsuits [about the free learning videos] is harmful. Similar discussion as previous thread on UC Berkley: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761 If the universities avoid releasing free videos, that punishes all of us including the majority of people who don't have disabilities. I'd prefer to find another way to caption these videos besides throwing around lawsuits. If a Federal appeals court rules that Netflix doesn't have to caption their commercial videos[1], surely we can cut some slack for free education videos. [1]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules-netflix-isnt-subject-to-disability-law/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules...
- teej 10y ago
  Unfortunately I don't think the Netflix ruling is going to apply here because Netflix doesn't take federal money to operate.
- ahelwer 10y ago
  Your argument here applies against all services which provide access to people with disabilities at increased expense, and is furthermore highly dependent on how you define net effect. Disability advocacy groups have pursued this cause through other channels, to no effect. This lawsuit is a last resort. The institutions have had a long time to get it together; as the article says, a letter was sent by the DOJ way back in 2010.
  - jasode 10y ago
    >Your argument here applies against all services [...] No, not all. I was restricting my argument to things given away for free with no commercial gain. As society, we've agreed that making commercial entities like restaurants install wheelchair ramps is good. However, if we see a soup kitchen feeding the hungry poor and notice that the building they use doesn't have a wheelchair ramp, we should threaten them with a lawsuit?!? (Yes, the hungry poor can be wheelchair bound too.) It seems means-spirited and a misguided use of the ADA.
plandis 10y ago
It's kind of tongue-in-cheek but NAD is ruining this great resource for he rest of us. Thinking about what's easier if the choice is take down all material and not spend money on a lawsuit or spend even more money to add captions there is an obvious choice for universities to make :-/
- endswapper 10y ago
  Universities, as institutions charged with shaping our future should absolutely be held to a higher standard. It's not about what's easy, but about what's right. Additionally, providing inclusive access should be a point of pride and a highlight of the community and culture that executes it.
- imglorp 10y ago
  What is Youtube going to do when it's their turn? Netflix already got sued. With 300-400 hours of user content uploaded _per minute_, Youtube would need to employ a small country to provide human subtitling at that rate. The automated subtitles have a ways to go still. Do they get a pass because it's not their content? Do they get a pass because it's almost impossible to provide? Or do they suck it up and CC everything at great expense to everyone?
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    > Do they get a pass because it's not their content? I mean, that would be equivalent to suing a gallery because paintings are "discriminatory". Or the painter. Obviously ridiculous.
  - jacalata 10y ago
    YouTube does not use federal funding to produce content.
    - imglorp 10y ago
      Then, on what grounds was Netflix sued?
toehead2000 10y ago
Without the closed captions, how are the deaf going to find knowledge in written form??
- aab0 10y ago
  Everywhere else on the Internet?
ausjke 10y ago
This is indeed ridiculous. I saw this came up at HN before. Again, I'm beyond words. You don't sue a guy doing good deeds just because he is not 100% good to all, or missed someone in his efforts. Gosh.
- ahelwer 10y ago
  That's a reasonable belief, which is why the ADA does not require compliance by individuals. However, these are not individuals; they are large institutions with the means to provide transcription. Can you formulate an argument for why online courses published by large institutions should be exempt from accessibility requirements which does not extend to an attack on accessibility requirements everywhere?
  - trentmb 10y ago
    Do for-credit online courses not meet ADA reqs?
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    Can you formulate an argument for why course material collected, published, and shared for free--with no tie to actual courses that provide graduating credit--by large institutions should be subjected to accessibility requirements which does not extend to an attack on freely sharing information everywhere? EDIT: For online course material that is offered to enrolled students and required for the completion of a degree, I do not believe anyone is arguing in opposition.
    - ahelwer 10y ago
      Excellent question! I like playing the role of gadfly, but will now try to construct my own argument for demolition to the enjoyment of others. First, let's examine the virtue of accessibility. We start with the observation that nearly 1 in 5 Americans are disabled[0]. The source provides a breakdown by disability type. 1 in 5 is a high enough ratio to appeal to purely selfish reasons for the virtue of accessibility: there is quite a good chance you yourself will become disabled and require accommodation, so you should advocate for accessibility while you are still fortunate enough to be healthy. Other reasons to support accessibility include improved economic output by including the disabled in the workforce, ensuring a path to success for exceptional disabled people, increased quality of life among the disabled populace (about which you may or may not care), and an appeal to the abstract ideal of equality. Now that we have established the virtue of accessibility, let's consider the virtue of enshrining accessibility requirements in law with penalty for non-compliance. Clearly, not all services desired by the disabled will implement accessibility (an example is the topic of this thread). Of those services which do not voluntarily implement accessibility, does the government have any interest in compelling implementation? Your answer to this question will depend on your own beliefs about the role of government; to head off an enormous digression, we'll just assume that yes, the government does have such an interest. If the government has an interest in compelling implementation of accessibility, to what services does this interest extend? Certainly not all; it would be absurd to require every favor or interaction between individuals maintain full access compliance. For our purposes here let's use a classification function unlikely to be controversial (and more restrictive than is practiced): services provided by the government, and services provided by institutions receiving money from the government. Both MIT ($460m in 2015[1]) and Harvard ($656m in 2012[2]) receive funding from the federal government. Thus they satisfy our restrictive classification, and so services offered should implement accessibility measures subject to penalty. These free online courses are services offered by MIT and Harvard. Thus they should implement accessibility measures. They certainly have the means. [0] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellane... [1] http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html [2] http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-research-budget-cuts/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-r...
SilasX 10y ago
Even given the importance of disability accomodation, this provision doesn't make sense. Why apply it to a non-profit making giveaway that's mostly an artifact of something they wanted to do (compliantly) anyway? That's like saying that if a store donates usable meat, they have to give a vegetarian option. All it accomplishes is to punish those who go through the effort to make sure that byproducts of their mission can reach more people, and make it harder to "recycle" such products. Think about it this way: it's already legal for me to make blind-incompatible blog posts and videos and give them away for free. This law is saying "hey prestigious institution, it's okay to give away your course materials for free, but you better durn well funnel it through a no-name blogger so no one knows where to find it!"
- falcolas 10y ago
  Oh, absolutely! You know how else they can save money? By stopping offering wheelchair accessible ramps. I bet they could save a few bucks by not using signs which also offer braile. And who needs elevators? Not their able-bodied students, obviously. /s
cooper12 10y ago
I'm really surprised to see this anti-accesibility sentiment on HN, where you see comments about contrast/scroll hijacking/Javascript requirability and numerous other things the WCAG recommends against on nearly every link posted. You'd expect Harvard and M.I.T. to have wheelchair ramps so disabled students could get to class right? It shouldn't be so controversial that their lectures should be accessible as well. Maybe some are concerned over the possible costs but there are solutions to that such as crowdsourcing. Universities are meant to spread knowledge for all and even if they're a public good, they should still be held accountable for it.
- x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
  It's not an anti-accessibility sentiment, it's anger that the only reasonable thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it away for free. It's like if an organization is giving away food and then gets sued for not providing a gluten or nut-free option. Its the sentiment that if some people can't have it, no one should.
  - cooper12 10y ago
    Or the reasonable thing for them to do is address the issue? No organization in the article said they were going to stop but instead reiterated their commitment to spreading knowledge, as they should. As for your last point, it's very disingenuous to paint the NAD as wanting to deprive others of something rather than wanting to allow disabled people to access something. We're not talking about food which has alternatives, but rather something which isn't accessible at all to deaf people, something which the law mandates with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
    - x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
      UC Berkley already pulled their online content for fear of a similar lawsuit.
  - microtherion 10y ago
    > the only reasonable thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it away for free Yeah, it's not like MIT and Harvard have spare money lying around to spend on captioning (apart from the $13.5B and $37.5B, respectively, in their endowments). Let Big Deaf use their deep pockets to pay for captioning, if that's what they want!
zebraflask 10y ago
The lawyers just want the ADA fees from institutions with deep pockets. It's not about these universities deliberately refusing to accommodate the hearing impaired. I think they would, if a serious student needed that assistance.
microtherion 10y ago
A few thoughts, somewhat orthogonal to each other: 1) Disability rights are often portrayed as a special privilege for a subgroup of society. But in reality, all of us start our lives mobility impaired and illiterate, and many of us who are lucky enough to grow old become sight, hearing, and mobility impaired to some extent. Accessibility helps all of us. 2) Accessibility helps not just humans. High quality captions add a lot of value to videos, because they make the videos searchable, which provides immense benefits to all users, hearing impaired or not. 3) Disability rights are the one aspect of social policies where the USA might be ahead of much of the rest of the world. Compared to my native Switzerland, the USA is far ahead in empowering disabled individuals to participate in public life. This is something the US should be proud of.
Mathnerd314 10y ago
This could set a new precedent if the decision extends beyond videos. Sample scenarios: - Color red is banned because colorblind people can't see it - "screeching nails on blackboard" Youtube video is pulled because deaf people can't enjoy it - Public datasets are pulled because the numbers are too complicated for ordinary people to understand IMO there should be a general divide between "public data" and "public accommodation". Data is just bits; 0's and 1's can be communicated to anyone. Requiring them to be something else as well is going too far. To put it another way: the accessibility problem is in the human-computer interface, not in the service on the other end of the network. And here's Harvard's brief agreeing with me, categorizing the videos as "goods" rather than "services": http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&z=fc4c531a http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&... That being said, it seems like the NAD only expects this to apply to public accommodations, so perhaps all that's needed is to move (donate) the videos to a separate (non-public-accommodation) location, e.g. Bittorrent.

45 points by lsh123 10y ago

Initially I was quite confused about why the ADA/Rehabilitation Act applied to Harvard/MIT. It seemed like it was largely about employers and federal agencies, but at least the Rehabilitation Act covers "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance", so I'm guessing that's why it applied to edX, though I wonder if it would apply if edX was an entirely separate entity that licensed the content from Harvard/MIT, or if they would still have an obligation to provide captions when licensing their content.

DanBC 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990#Title_III.E2.80.94public_accommodations_.28and_commercial_facilities.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac... > Under Title III, no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of disability with regards to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation. Public accommodations include most places of lodging (such as inns and hotels), recreation, transportation, education, and dining, along with stores, care providers, and places of public displays. [...] > The statutory definition of "readily achievable" calls for a balancing test between the cost of the proposed "fix" and the wherewithal of the business and/or owners of the business. Thus, what might be "readily achievable" for a sophisticated and financially capable corporation might not be readily achievable for a small or local business. It's a 25 year old law. I don't have much sympathy for large organisations that are still choosing to discriminate against disabled people.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  How exactly are they perpetrating an unjust or prejudicial treatment of the differently abled on the basis of them being differently abled?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    They have chosen to not make the material accessible to deaf people, even though laws around closed captioning equipment started coming in 25 years ago (more recent changes include Internet streaming), and even though the ADA is 25 years old. There's no excuse to not know about it. They knew about it (because they provide reasonable adjustments to very many students all the time, and they have departments to do so), but they chose to ignore it. It is clearly, unambiguously, discrimination. It might be legal (for the reasons I quoted around practicability), but that legality does not stop it being discriminatory.
    - davidivadavid 10y ago
      It seems like what you're saying in your first paragraph supports the idea that what they're doing is wrong because it's illegal. But then you do a 180 and say it's wrong because it's immoral. Obviously, it could be both, but even if the first argument is kind of a "duh" it seems more cogent than going back and forth between those two positions (as many people seem to do in the thread).
      - DanBC 10y ago
        I'm not good at communicating. Society decided it was immoral to discriminate against people with disabilities. We tried asking nicely, and got ignored, and so we passed laws to drive change. Those laws were made some time ago, and while it takes time for change to happen we've had long enough for people to bring things into compliance with those laws. This is especially true for large well funded organisations producing new material. There's not much excuse for a large well funded organisation, who is well aware of reasonable adjustments, to not make new material accessible. Arguments against making material accessible are "it's too hard" or "it's too expensive". That's covered by the law (I included reference to it in my post). But the fact that we still don't have useful speech-to-text or good transcription shows the contempt much of the tech industry has for people with disabilities. See also the choice to exclude people by choosing pale grey text on a bright white background. (Note that this doesn't just exclude people with disability levels of eyesight loss, but also people with mild visual loss).
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Thank you, I missed Title III.

mwnivek 10y ago

This article is from Feb. 12, 2015 Original discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798

calimac 10y ago

this is a joke and Like the ADA in many ways will oppress further exposure of free education due to increasing the cost. This is absurd.

maxxxxx 10y ago
I used to be skeptical of the ADA but on a recent trip to France my girlfriend broke her foot and I had to push here around in a wheelchair. I realized how difficult life can be for disabled people when elevators are not working or a curb doesn't have a ramp. These are all very simple things and don't cost that much in comparison to other features of the building. Since then I am a strong supporter of the ADA.

miranda_rights 10y ago

So if I understand correctly, this has nothing to do with the students attending these schools and instead concerns the course materials made free to the public. I don't know -- I understand that it must not be helpful for deaf students, but it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit. What does the NAD expect to have happen?

jordonwii 10y ago
> it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit. Indeed. That's exactly what happened at UC Berkeley, once news of these lawsuits got out. We used to have all of our class lectures available free to the public, but now they're restricted only to students.
- endswapper 10y ago
  I see that as an embarrassing result for UC Berkeley and any institution that follows suit. Clearly, there is value to making the material available, otherwise it would not have been posted in the first place. Discriminating against a few or against everyone because of a negligible cost is a failure. Furthermore, the fact that these considerations are not at the forefront of people's minds when releasing materials reinforces the merits of the lawsuit and the law.
  - rhaps0dy 10y ago
    > Discriminating against a few or against everyone because of a negligible cost is a failure. It's not a negligible cost to transcribe every single phrase the lecturer utters, for hours and hours and hours of lessons. Would it be better if the captions were generated by Youtube? Come on, that system is not good enough yet.
    - endswapper 10y ago
      Negligible is a relative terms, which is why I used it. My school has an annual operating budget in excess of $100MM. It's a small school in the Midwest. They could slice something off to accommodate the closed-captioning. I worked in post-production in Los Angeles and Manhattan and I have a reference for closed-captioning service fees. They could do it, or even better they could hire a person (maybe more) full-time and save money. A technology solution that improves access for everyone sounds like a great starting point for a startup.

throwow34393 10y ago

This absolutely crazy.

awqrre 10y ago
It stinks but you probably would not think so if you absolutely needed the closed caption.
- thesimpsons1022 10y ago
  no one "needs" it. its free lectures online that are posted from the goodwill of the schools, which have no real incentive to do it. all of a sudden if they have to CC them they probably would rather not post them anymore and now thousands of people will get screwed over.
- colllectorof 10y ago
  There are formulas drawn, I could attempt reading lips and I could try using speech recognition software. Alternative: they pull down all the courses and no one gets anything.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    > I could try using speech recognition software I agree with your point, however speech recognition likely resulted in the mentioned "inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned" videos ;)
- rhaps0dy 10y ago
  There's no reason to deny other people of the free lessons, other than green envy. You can get the material anyways from the recommended course books, which are probably available in the public library at request. Or the course notes in the course's web page.
  - awqrre 10y ago
    It almost always incurs a cost to provide convenience to the handicaps which is why laws have been created so that they are threated equally... For example, do you really need to be able to access this store with your wheel chair? probably not, you could use Amazon.

endswapper 10y ago

"The DOJ counters that the disability discrimination laws have clear jurisdiction over video on the internet, and that closed captions are required to make videos accessible to deaf or hard of hearing students.[0]" "Harvard and MIT both requested a Motion to Stay or Dismiss the cases on the grounds that current accessibility law doesn’t explicitly require universities to caption video on the web. In June, the US Department of Justice weighed in on the issue in a statement of interest to the court. The USDOJ argued in favor of the NAD and urged the judge to deny the Motion to Stay of Dismiss. Judge Robertson agreed. That means that, barring an objection from the District Judge, the lawsuit will proceed without delay.[1]" [0] http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-in-web-accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/ http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-in... [1] http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-web-accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/ http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-to-...

jasode 10y ago

If this causes a chilling effect such that universities find it easier or less costly to withhold the free lectures, it means the net effect on society from ADA lawsuits [about the free learning videos] is harmful. Similar discussion as previous thread on UC Berkley: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761 If the universities avoid releasing free videos, that punishes all of us including the majority of people who don't have disabilities. I'd prefer to find another way to caption these videos besides throwing around lawsuits. If a Federal appeals court rules that Netflix doesn't have to caption their commercial videos[1], surely we can cut some slack for free education videos. [1]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules-netflix-isnt-subject-to-disability-law/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules...

teej 10y ago
Unfortunately I don't think the Netflix ruling is going to apply here because Netflix doesn't take federal money to operate.
ahelwer 10y ago
Your argument here applies against all services which provide access to people with disabilities at increased expense, and is furthermore highly dependent on how you define net effect. Disability advocacy groups have pursued this cause through other channels, to no effect. This lawsuit is a last resort. The institutions have had a long time to get it together; as the article says, a letter was sent by the DOJ way back in 2010.
- jasode 10y ago
  >Your argument here applies against all services [...] No, not all. I was restricting my argument to things given away for free with no commercial gain. As society, we've agreed that making commercial entities like restaurants install wheelchair ramps is good. However, if we see a soup kitchen feeding the hungry poor and notice that the building they use doesn't have a wheelchair ramp, we should threaten them with a lawsuit?!? (Yes, the hungry poor can be wheelchair bound too.) It seems means-spirited and a misguided use of the ADA.

plandis 10y ago

It's kind of tongue-in-cheek but NAD is ruining this great resource for he rest of us. Thinking about what's easier if the choice is take down all material and not spend money on a lawsuit or spend even more money to add captions there is an obvious choice for universities to make :-/

endswapper 10y ago
Universities, as institutions charged with shaping our future should absolutely be held to a higher standard. It's not about what's easy, but about what's right. Additionally, providing inclusive access should be a point of pride and a highlight of the community and culture that executes it.
imglorp 10y ago
What is Youtube going to do when it's their turn? Netflix already got sued. With 300-400 hours of user content uploaded _per minute_, Youtube would need to employ a small country to provide human subtitling at that rate. The automated subtitles have a ways to go still. Do they get a pass because it's not their content? Do they get a pass because it's almost impossible to provide? Or do they suck it up and CC everything at great expense to everyone?
- guitarbill 10y ago
  > Do they get a pass because it's not their content? I mean, that would be equivalent to suing a gallery because paintings are "discriminatory". Or the painter. Obviously ridiculous.
- jacalata 10y ago
  YouTube does not use federal funding to produce content.
  - imglorp 10y ago
    Then, on what grounds was Netflix sued?

toehead2000 10y ago

Without the closed captions, how are the deaf going to find knowledge in written form??

aab0 10y ago
Everywhere else on the Internet?

ausjke 10y ago

This is indeed ridiculous. I saw this came up at HN before. Again, I'm beyond words. You don't sue a guy doing good deeds just because he is not 100% good to all, or missed someone in his efforts. Gosh.

ahelwer 10y ago
That's a reasonable belief, which is why the ADA does not require compliance by individuals. However, these are not individuals; they are large institutions with the means to provide transcription. Can you formulate an argument for why online courses published by large institutions should be exempt from accessibility requirements which does not extend to an attack on accessibility requirements everywhere?
- trentmb 10y ago
  Do for-credit online courses not meet ADA reqs?
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  Can you formulate an argument for why course material collected, published, and shared for free--with no tie to actual courses that provide graduating credit--by large institutions should be subjected to accessibility requirements which does not extend to an attack on freely sharing information everywhere? EDIT: For online course material that is offered to enrolled students and required for the completion of a degree, I do not believe anyone is arguing in opposition.
  - ahelwer 10y ago
    Excellent question! I like playing the role of gadfly, but will now try to construct my own argument for demolition to the enjoyment of others. First, let's examine the virtue of accessibility. We start with the observation that nearly 1 in 5 Americans are disabled[0]. The source provides a breakdown by disability type. 1 in 5 is a high enough ratio to appeal to purely selfish reasons for the virtue of accessibility: there is quite a good chance you yourself will become disabled and require accommodation, so you should advocate for accessibility while you are still fortunate enough to be healthy. Other reasons to support accessibility include improved economic output by including the disabled in the workforce, ensuring a path to success for exceptional disabled people, increased quality of life among the disabled populace (about which you may or may not care), and an appeal to the abstract ideal of equality. Now that we have established the virtue of accessibility, let's consider the virtue of enshrining accessibility requirements in law with penalty for non-compliance. Clearly, not all services desired by the disabled will implement accessibility (an example is the topic of this thread). Of those services which do not voluntarily implement accessibility, does the government have any interest in compelling implementation? Your answer to this question will depend on your own beliefs about the role of government; to head off an enormous digression, we'll just assume that yes, the government does have such an interest. If the government has an interest in compelling implementation of accessibility, to what services does this interest extend? Certainly not all; it would be absurd to require every favor or interaction between individuals maintain full access compliance. For our purposes here let's use a classification function unlikely to be controversial (and more restrictive than is practiced): services provided by the government, and services provided by institutions receiving money from the government. Both MIT ($460m in 2015[1]) and Harvard ($656m in 2012[2]) receive funding from the federal government. Thus they satisfy our restrictive classification, and so services offered should implement accessibility measures subject to penalty. These free online courses are services offered by MIT and Harvard. Thus they should implement accessibility measures. They certainly have the means. [0] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellane... [1] http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html [2] http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-research-budget-cuts/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-r...

SilasX 10y ago

Even given the importance of disability accomodation, this provision doesn't make sense. Why apply it to a non-profit making giveaway that's mostly an artifact of something they wanted to do (compliantly) anyway? That's like saying that if a store donates usable meat, they have to give a vegetarian option. All it accomplishes is to punish those who go through the effort to make sure that byproducts of their mission can reach more people, and make it harder to "recycle" such products. Think about it this way: it's already legal for me to make blind-incompatible blog posts and videos and give them away for free. This law is saying "hey prestigious institution, it's okay to give away your course materials for free, but you better durn well funnel it through a no-name blogger so no one knows where to find it!"

falcolas 10y ago
Oh, absolutely! You know how else they can save money? By stopping offering wheelchair accessible ramps. I bet they could save a few bucks by not using signs which also offer braile. And who needs elevators? Not their able-bodied students, obviously. /s

cooper12 10y ago

I'm really surprised to see this anti-accesibility sentiment on HN, where you see comments about contrast/scroll hijacking/Javascript requirability and numerous other things the WCAG recommends against on nearly every link posted. You'd expect Harvard and M.I.T. to have wheelchair ramps so disabled students could get to class right? It shouldn't be so controversial that their lectures should be accessible as well. Maybe some are concerned over the possible costs but there are solutions to that such as crowdsourcing. Universities are meant to spread knowledge for all and even if they're a public good, they should still be held accountable for it.

x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
It's not an anti-accessibility sentiment, it's anger that the only reasonable thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it away for free. It's like if an organization is giving away food and then gets sued for not providing a gluten or nut-free option. Its the sentiment that if some people can't have it, no one should.
- cooper12 10y ago
  Or the reasonable thing for them to do is address the issue? No organization in the article said they were going to stop but instead reiterated their commitment to spreading knowledge, as they should. As for your last point, it's very disingenuous to paint the NAD as wanting to deprive others of something rather than wanting to allow disabled people to access something. We're not talking about food which has alternatives, but rather something which isn't accessible at all to deaf people, something which the law mandates with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
  - x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
    UC Berkley already pulled their online content for fear of a similar lawsuit.
- microtherion 10y ago
  > the only reasonable thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it away for free Yeah, it's not like MIT and Harvard have spare money lying around to spend on captioning (apart from the $13.5B and $37.5B, respectively, in their endowments). Let Big Deaf use their deep pockets to pay for captioning, if that's what they want!

zebraflask 10y ago

The lawyers just want the ADA fees from institutions with deep pockets. It's not about these universities deliberately refusing to accommodate the hearing impaired. I think they would, if a serious student needed that assistance.

microtherion 10y ago

A few thoughts, somewhat orthogonal to each other: 1) Disability rights are often portrayed as a special privilege for a subgroup of society. But in reality, all of us start our lives mobility impaired and illiterate, and many of us who are lucky enough to grow old become sight, hearing, and mobility impaired to some extent. Accessibility helps all of us. 2) Accessibility helps not just humans. High quality captions add a lot of value to videos, because they make the videos searchable, which provides immense benefits to all users, hearing impaired or not. 3) Disability rights are the one aspect of social policies where the USA might be ahead of much of the rest of the world. Compared to my native Switzerland, the USA is far ahead in empowering disabled individuals to participate in public life. This is something the US should be proud of.

Mathnerd314 10y ago

This could set a new precedent if the decision extends beyond videos. Sample scenarios: - Color red is banned because colorblind people can't see it - "screeching nails on blackboard" Youtube video is pulled because deaf people can't enjoy it - Public datasets are pulled because the numbers are too complicated for ordinary people to understand IMO there should be a general divide between "public data" and "public accommodation". Data is just bits; 0's and 1's can be communicated to anyone. Requiring them to be something else as well is going too far. To put it another way: the accessibility problem is in the human-computer interface, not in the service on the other end of the network. And here's Harvard's brief agreeing with me, categorizing the videos as "goods" rather than "services": http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&z=fc4c531a http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&... That being said, it seems like the NAD only expects this to apply to public accommodations, so perhaps all that's needed is to move (donate) the videos to a separate (non-public-accommodation) location, e.g. Bittorrent.