Three blind students and an advocacy group have sued four California law schools, arguing that their online application system is not accessible to blind students.
The four law schools—Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Chapman University School of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, and Whittier College Law School—highly encourage or require students to apply through the Law School Admission Council’s Web site, which blind applicants say they must seek assistance to use. Arguing that the system amounts to discrimination, the group, the National Federation of the Blind, joined the students, Deepa Goraya, Bruce J. Sexton, and Claire Stanley, in suing the schools and the admission council.
The National Federation of the Blind and Ms. Goraya first filed suit against the admission council in February 2009, in a county superior court in California. An amended lawsuit filed Tuesday added two more blind students as plaintiffs and the four law schools as defendants, said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. The admission council’s Web site is the main application system that law schools use, he added, and the National Federation of the Blind has also filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice against nine other law schools that use the same system.
The applications on the admission council’s Web site cannot be converted to synthesized speech or Braille by the software that blind people typically use to read Web sites, according to a press release by the federation.
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen quickly,” said Robert Burgoyne, a lawyer representing the admission council. The council is looking at ways to make its site more accessible, he said, though no concrete changes are in the works yet.
3 Responses to Blind Students Sue Law Schools Over Online Applications
dgzarlengo - June 9, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I helped two colleges in a District in San Diego County become completely ADA compliant. Have language and voice capability for students with disabilities, staff and faculty is rather straight forward and relatively simple. Having voice tags to html is simple.I find it a bit idiotic to sue rather than go to the college/university and ask for the changes. I checked with a blind consultant to ensure we had the best solutions, a set of technology related solutions for students with disabilities and I personally ensure all class rooms, labs and offices were 100% compliant for ADA. This only took minor changes – configurations of work stations and spatial distribution. I have little sympathy for the students who are suing if they did not first contact the colleges/universities for modifications. I am retired now – forced out by the CA budget crisis before the Terminator was elected. I was under contract as a CIO and as such was chopped off at the knees. I had been the only one to ever get the two schools in the district to cooperate (and enjoy it) on administrative, learning, and ADA standards. We had a mechanism if we had insufficient licensing for students with disability – so we could immediately provide top service to all students. I even tested the use of foreign language at the click of a button (described by software vocally for students with blindness. Dr Zarlenga
bagneris - June 9, 2010 at 7:15 pm
What is the best “voice recognition” software? I have Dragon but it does not work with VISTA, and, I really need something that actually can be trained to recognize your voice. Thanks in advance. DESPERATE for answers!
maxbini - June 10, 2010 at 8:31 pm
To Dr Zarlengo,You seem more concerned with patting yourself on the back and griping about being “forced out” rather than considering the case as discrimination and the importance of meeting the needs of these students. You speak of only two schools and admit that you were the only one to arrange this compliance with them. The real issue is worldwide. You are right in saying that it is fairly easy (and I would add, not even financially prohibitive) to be compliant but the truth is that many are not compliant and the problem is that they often do not even consider the need for universal access until a court action is filed.Aside to Bagneris:I think Dragon is considered the best, they have definitly improved in recent years – but you really need to train your Dragon carefully.