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From the disability community's perspective, the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 are key safeguards to protect them from discrimination.

From the disability community's perspective, the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 are key safeguards to protect them from discrimination. Not enforcing these laws because the lectures benefit able-bodied people is ableism and discriminatory against the disabled community. UCB was found to be in non-compliance. UCB could have chosen to fix the accessibility issues, but it did not. It wasn't the deaf community that took down the videos, but UCB's choice.

yourapostasy 10y ago
I appreciate the disability community's "hand up, not hand out" attitude. But Bloomberg TV's and CNBC's closed captioning for example, are nearly incomprehensible much of the time. Far, far more of the disability community's members are impacted by timely, accurate financial news than the ones who wanted to take UCB's free video courses. So why single out UCB? Why single out free educational content instead of for-profit content with a wider, more actionable impact? I understand UCB pulled the videos. From my layman's perspective, that doesn't actually address the DOJ's enforcement action. The Title II compliance demand still stands even after taking down the videos from public access. I am concerned that UCB will simply ban all the videos from even student access, and only allow them back into use as they are vetted, one by one, slowly, by their Web Accessibility Services team, and now with expensive attorney time on top, and only when an actual disabled student attends a specific course. The disability-compliant transcription processing cost is about 2.5X more expensive than stenography transcription. An all-day deposition will cost in the range of about $1K, and 8 hours of closed caption transcription will run around $2.4K. Yet court stenographers are not mandated absolutely everywhere on the off-chance a court-accepted record might be needed, only in a court where their output is required to make a decision. So why is the criteria for ADA compliance set so much broader? Would Gallaudet University have pressed the case if the fewer than a handful of courses that were desired were re-done and transcribed to meet their accuracy requirements? If not, what is the rationale for a blanket injunction to transcribe all courses regardless of demonstrated need? The services to meet compliance are very expensive, is advocating for indiscriminate enforcement as a blanket policy economically realistic at this point of automated transcription development? I want to see us reach the point where all media is seamlessly, automatically and practically for free transcribed for the disabled in a variety of formats. But we're still in a world ruled by scarcity for quite a while longer, and I am currently unable to reconcile the enormous costs placed upon society at large and content creators in particular. Please share your perspective, thanks in advance.

yourapostasy 10y ago

I appreciate the disability community's "hand up, not hand out" attitude. But Bloomberg TV's and CNBC's closed captioning for example, are nearly incomprehensible much of the time. Far, far more of the disability community's members are impacted by timely, accurate financial news than the ones who wanted to take UCB's free video courses. So why single out UCB? Why single out free educational content instead of for-profit content with a wider, more actionable impact? I understand UCB pulled the videos. From my layman's perspective, that doesn't actually address the DOJ's enforcement action. The Title II compliance demand still stands even after taking down the videos from public access. I am concerned that UCB will simply ban all the videos from even student access, and only allow them back into use as they are vetted, one by one, slowly, by their Web Accessibility Services team, and now with expensive attorney time on top, and only when an actual disabled student attends a specific course. The disability-compliant transcription processing cost is about 2.5X more expensive than stenography transcription. An all-day deposition will cost in the range of about $1K, and 8 hours of closed caption transcription will run around $2.4K. Yet court stenographers are not mandated absolutely everywhere on the off-chance a court-accepted record might be needed, only in a court where their output is required to make a decision. So why is the criteria for ADA compliance set so much broader? Would Gallaudet University have pressed the case if the fewer than a handful of courses that were desired were re-done and transcribed to meet their accuracy requirements? If not, what is the rationale for a blanket injunction to transcribe all courses regardless of demonstrated need? The services to meet compliance are very expensive, is advocating for indiscriminate enforcement as a blanket policy economically realistic at this point of automated transcription development? I want to see us reach the point where all media is seamlessly, automatically and practically for free transcribed for the disabled in a variety of formats. But we're still in a world ruled by scarcity for quite a while longer, and I am currently unable to reconcile the enormous costs placed upon society at large and content creators in particular. Please share your perspective, thanks in advance.