5 ms·

Berkeley posted a bunch of free course content. They got sued under ADA because they hadn't captioned the material. Rather than go back and caption everything t

Berkeley posted a bunch of free course content. They got sued under ADA because they hadn't captioned the material. Rather than go back and caption everything they removed the material. Another example was Walter Lewin's physics videos all got pulled by MIT from Open Courseware (but are available on YT at least). Not a comment about the parties involved, just saying there's external factors sometimes that will vanish a video. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/10/despite-mits-decision-delete-walter-lewins-lecture-videos-live https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/10/despite-mits-...

cush 6y ago
Wait, Walter Lewin's videos are gone...?
- rel 6y ago
  MIT policy on sexual harassment was found to be violated. https://news.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208 https://news.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    So what? Report him to the police, do an investigation, fire him if he really did what he's accused of, let the court deal with the rest... I don't know why removing him from the internet helps.
    - rvp-x 6y ago
      My initial gut feeling was your response, but changed my mind quickly when reading the article. His videos being online resulted in interaction with the students, and that's where he harassed them. It's a shame, but any other solution feels like it's a broken stair just waiting for someone to trip over it.
    - Jiocus 6y ago
      Removing a persona non-grata and their related authored material may serves multiple purposes: - The organization signaling to stakeholders that they condemn and take appropriate action against behaviour. - The organzation engaging in damage control, minimizing future exposure of events linking back to the organization. - Penalizing transgressive behaviour in a professional setting, through sanctions and revocations of merit, reputation, licensing or employment etc. Actually, breach of contract could lead to lecture material not being legally available, if a lecturer has sole ownership of such. It could also be that future use of say, recorded lectures, involves compensation to the author. If an organization want to cut ties to the author, or just withhold compensation for a time, they might refrain from using the authors material.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - aaronharnly 6y ago
      Because interacting with students on the Internet is how he harassed people?
  - IndySun 6y ago
    Another explainer here. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/complainant-unprecedented-walter-lewin-sexual-harassment-case-comes-forward https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/complainant-u...
japanuspus 6y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Berkeley posted a bunch of free course content. They got sued under ADA because they hadn't captioned the material. This sort of thing really bothers me. Accessibility should absolutely be supported where feasible, but never to the point where it prevents releasing content in the first place.
- bladegash 6y ago
  Not even when you knew about the law and its requirements, violating their own university policies, having professors committing fraud by attesting their course materials were accessible, etc? Read the DoJ findings below, Berkeley is not a victim here in my opinion. Regardless, no one said Berkeley had to take the videos down. They chose to do that on their own because it was too “expensive” to make them accessible. However, I did not see Berkeley turning down federal funding, which is in part why they are legally required to make their courses accessible (Section 504, for those wondering). Funny how that stuff works. https://www.ada.gov/briefs/uc_berkley_lof.pdf https://www.ada.gov/briefs/uc_berkley_lof.pdf
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Sounds to me like the way the law is enforced should change then. There should be a fine for not following the law if the content is removed or not updated. If the fine is sufficiently high, then there will be no incentive to just remove the content. There will still be a disincentive to create it in the first place, but at least existing content won't disappear.
    - bladegash 6y ago
      I agree with you, since unfortunately the only real way to enforce the ADA is through private citizens filing civil suit. Regardless, a lack of more effective means for enforcement does not absolve Berkeley of failing to follow the law, especially when they had internal resources to make their material accessible and chose not to do so. Edit: apologies, misread your post and that is an interesting approach. Another way is to make the university pay back a portion of the federal funding they received, up to whatever amount they estimate it would take to make the materials accessible.
londons_explore 6y ago
Auto captions are plenty good enough to understand material nowadays. And they'll only get better with time. Considering that, we should remove overzealous captioning laws and simply require auto-captions and focus our accessibility efforts elsewhere in society (like making more new build houses step free - it's ridiculous that 90% of my friends houses I can't visit).

cush 6y ago

Wait, Walter Lewin's videos are gone...?

rel 6y ago
MIT policy on sexual harassment was found to be violated. https://news.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208 https://news.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  So what? Report him to the police, do an investigation, fire him if he really did what he's accused of, let the court deal with the rest... I don't know why removing him from the internet helps.
  - rvp-x 6y ago
    My initial gut feeling was your response, but changed my mind quickly when reading the article. His videos being online resulted in interaction with the students, and that's where he harassed them. It's a shame, but any other solution feels like it's a broken stair just waiting for someone to trip over it.
  - Jiocus 6y ago
    Removing a persona non-grata and their related authored material may serves multiple purposes: - The organization signaling to stakeholders that they condemn and take appropriate action against behaviour. - The organzation engaging in damage control, minimizing future exposure of events linking back to the organization. - Penalizing transgressive behaviour in a professional setting, through sanctions and revocations of merit, reputation, licensing or employment etc. Actually, breach of contract could lead to lecture material not being legally available, if a lecturer has sole ownership of such. It could also be that future use of say, recorded lectures, involves compensation to the author. If an organization want to cut ties to the author, or just withhold compensation for a time, they might refrain from using the authors material.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - aaronharnly 6y ago
    Because interacting with students on the Internet is how he harassed people?
- IndySun 6y ago
  Another explainer here. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/complainant-unprecedented-walter-lewin-sexual-harassment-case-comes-forward https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/complainant-u...

japanuspus 6y ago

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> Berkeley posted a bunch of free course content. They got sued under ADA because they hadn't captioned the material. This sort of thing really bothers me. Accessibility should absolutely be supported where feasible, but never to the point where it prevents releasing content in the first place.

bladegash 6y ago
Not even when you knew about the law and its requirements, violating their own university policies, having professors committing fraud by attesting their course materials were accessible, etc? Read the DoJ findings below, Berkeley is not a victim here in my opinion. Regardless, no one said Berkeley had to take the videos down. They chose to do that on their own because it was too “expensive” to make them accessible. However, I did not see Berkeley turning down federal funding, which is in part why they are legally required to make their courses accessible (Section 504, for those wondering). Funny how that stuff works. https://www.ada.gov/briefs/uc_berkley_lof.pdf https://www.ada.gov/briefs/uc_berkley_lof.pdf
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Sounds to me like the way the law is enforced should change then. There should be a fine for not following the law if the content is removed or not updated. If the fine is sufficiently high, then there will be no incentive to just remove the content. There will still be a disincentive to create it in the first place, but at least existing content won't disappear.
  - bladegash 6y ago
    I agree with you, since unfortunately the only real way to enforce the ADA is through private citizens filing civil suit. Regardless, a lack of more effective means for enforcement does not absolve Berkeley of failing to follow the law, especially when they had internal resources to make their material accessible and chose not to do so. Edit: apologies, misread your post and that is an interesting approach. Another way is to make the university pay back a portion of the federal funding they received, up to whatever amount they estimate it would take to make the materials accessible.

londons_explore 6y ago

Auto captions are plenty good enough to understand material nowadays. And they'll only get better with time. Considering that, we should remove overzealous captioning laws and simply require auto-captions and focus our accessibility efforts elsewhere in society (like making more new build houses step free - it's ridiculous that 90% of my friends houses I can't visit).