Private higher-education institutions must consider Website accessibility
During the COVID-19 pandemic, learning institutions were forced to migrate to digital platforms to communicate with and educate their students. However,compliance obligations in the digital world are a challenge for them.
Thompson Coburn’s Higher Education Group previously detailed the requirements of the Department of Education’s new Distance Education Rule in a webinar for institutions looking to educate students online. Here are the highlights from the report on website accessibility considerations and legal requirements for private institutions of higher education.
Apart from state and local laws, anti-discrimination and human rights laws that also govern online accessibility, there are two main US federal laws that govern website accessibility for private institutions of higher education,Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504).
The complexity of legal frameworks are a difficult but important challenge, as we see in recent DOJ settlement agreements with Kroger, Hy-Vee, and Rite-Aid , the court’s interpretation ruled in favor , of conformance with WCAG standards
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