2 The impact of digital ADA compliance on education
Schools, colleges, and universities have taken the lead in making their campuses more accessible to everyone in response to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). They have invested a lot in physical infrastructure that makes moving around campus safer and easier, particularly for individuals with visual and motor impairments. However, many school websites have not yet caught up with ADA website accessibility requirements. This lack of compliance results in online spaces that seem to exclude students with disabilities from fully participating in school activities.
This article will discuss the relationship between the ADA and websites, and how websites may comply with the ADA. We will also discuss the impact of ADA compliance on school websites, particularly the risk of accessibility-related lawsuits.
What is ADA compliance?
The ADA, as it was passed in 1990, was silent on websites and digital applications as it pre-dated the rise of the internet. However, the Department of Justice released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2010, stating that it was important for individuals with disabilities to have equal access to electronic and information technology, particularly for point-of-sale systems, kiosks, and computer terminals in public libraries.
Recent court decisions have further extended the concept of digital accessibility to include public-facing websites, including sales websites. Some plaintiffs have also taken schools and universities to court over alleged ADA violations, and in many cases, the complainants have settled. This trend indicates that the ADA does not just cover physical infrastructure, but also digital infrastructure and content.
However, the ADA itself does not say what makes a website accessible. Most settlements and decisions involving academic institutions have turned to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a benchmark for digital accessibility. For example, Harvard’s Digital Accessibility Policy, adopted in 2019 in response to a class-action ADA lawsuit, uses WCAG 2.1 Level AA for both websites and web-based applications. For example, the university pledged to add captions to all pre-recorded and live video content posted on its official media-sharing channels, which complies with WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements. Therefore, we can safely say that complying with the WCAG also means complying with the ADA.
Why should schools comply with the ADA?
Digital ADA compliance is crucial to schools for multiple reasons.
First, non-compliance with the ADA can result in costly lawsuits and settlements. More than 40 two- and four-year institutions across the country have been the target of class action lawsuits filed by plaintiffs with disabilities. The Harvard lawsuit that was mentioned earlier is just one example of a case involving an institution that had to comply with the requirements of users with disabilities.
Closer to home, Arizona State University was the subject of a 2010 lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind contending that university-issued e-book readers lacked accessibility controls. Arizona State settled with the plaintiffs and promised to make future e-book readers more accessible. This meant that the university also had to replace any devices that it had previously deployed, making the settlement a very costly one.
Second, ADA compliance has been linked to better website performance in terms of both search engine rankings and engagement. Many WCAG success criteria, such as the addition of image alt text and the use of headings and labels, also play a key role in search engine indexing. For instance, subheadings help web pages get into the “People also ask” section of Google search results. This is particularly useful for driving backlinks and citations from external sources, further increasing institutional credibility.
Engagement also goes up with ADA compliance. Some studies show that a significant proportion of users will leave a website if they don’t find it accessible enough. This tends to exclude individuals with disabilities, who make up one-fifth of the country’s population. Implementing accessibility features on your website will help it reach an underserved audience, which also includes students and researchers, that is constantly looking for inclusive spaces.
ADA compliance: Digital inclusivity for all learners
The ADA is more than just a set of guidelines regarding physical accommodations for individuals with disabilities. It also requires online spaces to be accessible to everyone. As entities that serve the general public, schools, colleges, and universities must make information available to everyone, regardless of their disability. By making academic websites available, institutions of learning lead the way in making the internet a more inclusive place.
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