One the list of sued establishments includes Fordham University, Manhattan College, Long Island University, and as of Oct. 4, Hofstra University.
All eight lawsuits have come from the lawyers of Emanuel Delacruz, who is blind.
Delacruz’s lawyer, Dana Gottlieb, told The New York Times that the lawsuits state that he tried to find basic information, like cost of tuition, location and an academic calendar, but couldn’t gain access due to the sites not being readable by his screen-reading software.
Delacruz’s lawsuits aren’t new. In fact, over 750 similar lawsuits have been filed over the same issue since the beginning of 2015. However, only seven of the suits have been directed toward academic websites, with Delacruz’s now doubling that number.
Federal law requires that public accommodations need to be accessible for those citizens with disabilities – physical solutions for public spaces were a big part of the issue, which is why most establishments will eventually put in wheelchair ramps or elevators. But with the internet comes a new level of difficulty, and now lawyers and disability advocates argue that websites are also public spaces, and need to be accessible for those who may not be able to use them with common ease.
“As more students are aware of their rights, and as websites have become so much of what universities now focus on, in their marketing materials for example, it’s not surprising to me that there will be an increase in these types of lawsuits,” said Arlene Kanter, director of the Disability Law and Policy Program at Syracuse University’s law school.
In 2015, both Harvard and M.I.T. were sued by advocates for the deaf for failing to caption online lectures, courses and other education materials. After a filed complaint in 2016, the University of California, Berkeley, was found in violation of the disability law for not providing appropriate accommodation for their free video lectures and podcasts.
After the Department of Justice found Berkeley in violation of the Disabilities Act, the school responded by removing over 20,000 publicly accessible video and audio files from their website. Administrators called in “unenviable” and “unavoidable” give the “extremely expensive” cost of compliance to the Disabilities Act.
The Americans With Disabilities Act was written almost three decades ago and has not had a revision since, giving no mention on how to involve the internet. The Department of Justice is who enforces the act and has been mum on revisions. In July of 2017, the federal government placed web regulations on its last of “inactive” agenda items.
Rulings of these suits are left completely in the hands of the judges, and it’s a become a bit of a legal gray area with judges ruling for and against disabled plaintiffs. Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York told The Times that it could either be significant advancement for civil rights, or a lawyer looking to make a quick buck.
According to Stebbins, some lawyers have even filed identical suits against a handful of different businesses or universities at once solely to reach a settled with one or more.
“These are cut-and-paste lawsuits,” he said. “You just have these lawyers taking advantage of good-intentioned law to make money.”
There will be lawyers who are in it solely to make money or to make business, but that doesn’t take care of the underlying problem – which is that people with disabilities still cannot access these sites to the same degree as their equal.
The founder of the firm used by Delacruz, Jeffrey M. Gottlieb, wrote in an email to The Times saying that private lawyers had to step in to promote web accessibility due to the lack of government action.
“When ‘lawsuit-reform’ organizations protest about the nature of these lawsuits, they are only advancing the interests of wealthy corporate interests that fund them,” he wrote. “If they were truly reform oriented, they would advocate for more government intervention to protect the rights of those who most need protection.”
Most of the colleges sued by Delacruz denied comment. A spokesman for Iona College said that it “takes all matters of discrimination seriously and strives to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and appropriately. The college will continue to ensure everyone has equitable access to its facilities including its website.”
Ultimately, lawyers represent people who – regardless of their lawyers’ motivations – are being barred from accessing public services, says Eve Hill, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.
“There has to be somebody who is trying to access the website,” said Hill, who is now works as a disability rights lawyer. “Imagine if you were that person. Imagine if you were trying to apply to school, and every college you went to check out refused to tell you how.”
