Speaker 1: Today's episode, we're going to focus on ADA compliance. A little off the cuff, a lot of implications on academic delivery, student experience and accommodation, on-campus student experience, but most of the attention, most of the lawsuits have been related to web accessibility, and we'll talk about that today. The Americans with Disabilities Act was a civil rights law that passed in the United States that essentially prohibited discrimination against individuals with disabilities in public life, including jobs, schools, transportations, and the private places that are open to general public. In contact, ADA compliance is particularly significant because it ensures that colleges and universities provide equal access and opportunity to students with disabilities. This idea, or concept, or laws that protect those with disabilities from essentially mistreatment or lack of access to higher education. I'll go over it a little bit as it relates to its academic application, really interested in discussing recent impact on the front-end operation of a university or college, whether it's in recruiting, prospecting, or its website, believe it or not. The ADA is divided into several titles, two in particular that impact higher education in a major way, Title II, which applies to all public institutions and colleges, and it mandates that state and local governments, including state funded schools and federally funded schools, provide people with disabilities equal access to all of their services and programs and activities. Focus on services today. So where most universities and colleges apply, ADA is essentially specific to programs and delivery, but don't really focus on compliance in additional services. Web services is what we'll focus on today. Title III specifically covers private colleges and universities that focus on public accommodation, ensuring that the services and facilities are accessible. So the theme as we discuss ADA is accessibility, and that's essentially what we'll talk about today. Private universities and colleges, for-profit universities and colleges, public institutions are all not shielded from ADA. There's specific titles that actually apply all of the act to universities and colleges specifically in the United States, or any foreign university or college that is funded by federal aid. There's some key requirements, but we'll start with that and we'll get into kind of the exciting nitty gritty stuff. It's exciting because we can give you tools to make sure that you're servicing those with disabilities, but also to keep you out of trouble. So you must obviously be accessible to those with disabilities. So the campus must ensure physical accessibility, you have to have wheelchair accessible buildings and facilities, ramps, door widths have to be to an appropriate size, larger elevators, accessible restrooms and things of that nature. Accessibility extends beyond the physical nature that we're all used to, though. And that's essentially how I'll transition out of these key requirements into our conversation today, leaning into what I call digital accessibility. You have to provide reasonable accommodations as a key requirement. So students with disabilities typically will request those accommodations, and if they're reasonable, you have to provide those to the student, right? That can include extended time on test taking, assignments, note taking services, sign language interpreters and the use of assistive technology. Another requirement is academic adjustment. So similar to accommodation, you have to be able to make modifications to the way that you essentially do things, whether it's lecture, lab, curriculum, instruction delivery, to ensure equal access to those with disabilities. So think, if a certain lesson is taught to students who can see, how are you making adjustments and modifications to those that can't see so that they can achieve a similar experience within a reasonable way? And housing, right? It's not only a physical requirement, it's housing. So ADA complies, also extends the housing. If a college provides housing for students, it has to ensure accessible housing options are available at a comparable cost and quality to the standard housing. Now where we get really interesting is digital accessibility. So as digital education tools have risen, think online, think simulation, hybrid, right learning, ADA compliance does also 100% include digital accessibility. Today or in this episode, we're going to focus on your website because it does cover websites, online courses, digital learning materials, everything has to be accessible to the individuals with disabilities, including those who are visually impaired and hearing impaired. The issue for noncompliance essentially is that you would open yourself to major legal challenges related to ADA. So the failure to comply typically is going to result in a loss and the outcome of the lawsuit is what you have to watch out for because at the low end, it could be financial penalties, settlements, judgments. At the high end, with case law on the books can include the loss of federal funding. So the loss of the ability to participate in any of the federal funding programs, whether it's the Department of Education or VA or any of the above. Therefore compliance is not just a legal requirement and it becomes a really critical aspect of your institution's governance and we'll talk about what those lawsuits look like in just a little bit. So if we focus on websites to begin with, the common lawsuits, I'll kind of talk to what the common lawsuits are about. You know, websites lacking compatibility with screen readers. These are things that are used by visually impaired people to read text or display on the screen. Video without caption is a major one. So a university or college that hosts, you know, 50, 100, 5000 videos on their websites without closed captioning, that's a major deal, a poor color contrast and lack of alternative text or images. And remember, this isn't just your website. This is your application portal. This is the online learning management system that you're using. The online course material, collateral. So the major lawsuits are related to essentially compatibility and screen readers, videos without captions and then poor contrast or alternative text or images. For a long time this was a very difficult thing to do. And an area that litigators and law firms did not focus on because they didn't see value or ROI in return on lawsuit for their clients. New technology essentially allows us to deploy a string of code on any web asset to become ADA compliant. So since the barrier to compliance has become essentially so low, a lot of vendors that offer this at either subscription model or a one-time fee, some universities and colleges pay their own tools to do this. What has happened recently, let's say in the last 10 years, is that now law firms or litigators are incentivized to bring these suits forward against colleges because they're actually winning them. So a few notable ones, a couple notable ones, Harvard and MIT in 2015, and then UC Berkeley in 2017. So we're at 2024 when this episode is being recorded. So we're definitely 10 plus years in actual case law with lawsuits that are being either settled or won. The most common lawsuits have been directed against online institutions and smaller colleges or universities. But the Harvard-MIT lawsuit in 2015 essentially was brought on by the National Association for the Deaf. And they filed the lawsuit against both institutions for failing to provide closed captioning on their online lectures, courses, podcasts, and other educational material. So they attack online curriculum specifically. In 2017, UC Berkeley faced criticism and potential legal action for its insufficient accessibility to online content. As a result, Berkeley removed thousands of videos and audio files from public access to avoid the potential violation. So you don't need to get caught in this. This is actually really easy to solve. There are multiple vendors and companies out in the space that allow you to purchase through subscription or some other fee tools that instantly make any content that you have ADA compliant. We have a lot of different favorite ones that we can put in the podcast summary. We also have an article and we'll have some additional content coming out specific to ADA around the time that this podcast comes out. But these tools essentially operate like a widget, right? If you've ever seen a little man or a woman with some arms, legs, and a head on a website, that is an ADA compliance tool. These things can live on LMSs, they can live on portals, they can live on mobile applications, they can live on websites, and they essentially address all requirements. You do also have to have some proper disclosures and serve parts of your website. And it also always makes sense to have your online presence, your online brand standard audited by a partner or firm, either someone like us at Engine Systems or one of these ADA compliant SaaS companies to modify your fonts and colors so that they're ADA compliant. But essentially what these tools do is allow for various modifications to your online asset in real time based on the specific disability that the user, student, or visitor has. So they actually have the option to increase font size. So if they're partially blind or they can see out of one eye, they have the ability to change colors and contrast to assist somebody that's maybe colorblind or somebody that only sees one or two, three different colors. It can, you know, read the written text on a screen for someone that can't see. There's a lot of different features that essentially these tools can use. And a institution that today is not ADA compliant, really what I've seen can be ADA compliant within 15 days. So unlike in suitcase loss, you know, back in 2015, 2017, where essentially Harvard and MIT lost and then Berkeley had to remove, you know, thousands of video and audio files from public access, all they would have had to do is just deploy this technology. So it's a very interesting topic, but it's definitely easy to address, to provide great experience for those with disabilities and to keep you out of trouble. Till next time. Appreciate it. Thank you.