Legal Bulletin

October 26, 2001

Legal Obligations of Colleges and Universities:
Accessible Web-based information for students with disabilities

As part of a series of Weekly Legal Bulletins related to the goals of the National Center on Accessible Information Technology in Education (AccessIT), this Bulletin will discuss the legal obligations of colleges and universities to provide access to Web-based information for students with disabilities.

The Department of Education has primary responsibility in enforcing disability discrimination laws as they relate to colleges and universities. Most of these "postsecondary" education institutions (referred to here as "colleges") are required to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, since they receive funds from the Department of Education in the form of student financial aid and program funds. In addition, all public colleges are required to comply with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects people with disabilities from discrimination in state and local government services.

Colleges use web sites for a variety of purposes, including

Students access these web pages for purposes directly related to their education and status as students of a college, and in this way students with disabilities are no different than students without disabilities. However, for some students with disabilities, accessing the Internet and web sites may be difficult or even impossible without the right equipment and without the web sites meeting accessibility standards. For example, a person who is visually-impaired or blind might need access to a computer with software that can read a screen verbally to the student, but will also need the college web site to be designed in such a way that the specialized screen-reading software can read the web pages.

Colleges are required to think proactively about meeting the accommodation needs of students with disabilities, and must have an ADA and Section 504 compliance policy in place prior to requests for accommodations. By being proactive, and thinking about disability issues prior to purchasing computer equipment and designing web pages, additional costs associated with making college web sites accessible to students can be greatly limited or even eliminated altogether. For example, designing new web pages with the concepts of universal design (i.e. accessible by all people, including those with disabilities), would involve very limited additional costs, much less than going through already-designed web pages and changing each item individually.

The standards for accessible web page design in the federal sector are defined by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which specifically defines what features are needed for accessibility. It is unclear at this point in time whether these standards will apply to colleges that receive federal funds or are public institutions. The trend of enforcement agencies and courts, though, in dealing with cases involving inaccessible web sites, will likely be the adoption of a set of standards for accessibility of non-Federal web sites. The standards that would likely be adopted are those of section 508 (see http://www.section508.gov/final_text.html) or those that were the original basis for the section 508 standards, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/). Both of these sets of standards have specific points that web site designers should follow in designing web pages and assessing whether an existing web page is accessible.

Colleges do not necessarily have to provide accessibility to every web page in their site, however. Colleges will likely not be required to change web pages when it would end up being an undue burden or fundamentally alter the nature of the services they provide, although these are narrow exceptions. In addition, some pages might not need to be accessible because they are not normally accessed by the student body, employees or the public, such as students' personal web pages. At this point in time, if students need information or a service provided by inaccessible web pages, and that information or service can be provided in an alternate format, the college's legal obligation possibly will be met, although that will depend on the particulars of that situation.

Other Links of interest:
Section 508 web site - http://www.section508.gov/index.html
Section 508 law and standards - http://www.section508.gov/About508.htm
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative page - http://www.w3.org/WAI/