Swarthmore College will make its campus more accessible to people with disabilities, under a settlement with the Justice Department.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the department had found that such facilities as restrooms, signs, doors, and interior and exterior pathways were inaccessible to the disabled.

Swarthmore will have to update its facilities within six years and will submit an accessibility plan to the department by the end of 2008. Among the upgrades the college will perform are making 3 percent of student dormitories accessible and providing “assistive listening” systems in lecture halls.

In the Inquirer article, Stuart Hain, associate vice president for facilities and services, noted that the settlement with the Justice Department “has not been contentious at all” and stemmed from a routine visit by department officials last year.

Accessibility issues have come under scrutiny at colleges and universities recently. The Justice Department made similar settlements last year with the University of Chicago and Colorado College. And the Education Department has criticized the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor for the lack of wheelchair accessibility to its stadium. The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it was joining a lawsuit over that dispute. —Scott Carlson