"...the Department of Justice has recently asserted that the University is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because, in its view, not all of the free course and lecture content UC Berkeley makes available on certain online platforms is fully accessible to individuals with hearing, visual or manual disabilities..."
Wow. Talk about harming hundreds of people for no reason at all.
IANAL, but I believe the ADA would be applicable for students of the college, not necessarily online content consumers viewing the college's courses.
Of course, the problem here is that you have to start playing expensive lawyer games to get that clarified -- and it might take years. So even if Berkeley has done nothing wrong, they still might end up having to pull the courses.
About five years ago I was on crutches for several months and I can highly recommend the experience to anybody who is against the ADA as an eye-opener.
You can be against ADA without being against disability access entirely. The main complaints are that it's enforced through lawsuits which bankrupt small businesses. Often over trivial issues, like their mirror being 1 inch too high, or the parking sign not having the correct sticker on it, etc. That's a very different thing than not having a wheelchair ramp.
The problem here is that it might set precedence and that the long time loss would be bigger if that precedent isn't set, compared to the intermediate costs of subtitles.
Wow. Talk about harming hundreds of people for no reason at all.
IANAL, but I believe the ADA would be applicable for students of the college, not necessarily online content consumers viewing the college's courses.
Of course, the problem here is that you have to start playing expensive lawyer games to get that clarified -- and it might take years. So even if Berkeley has done nothing wrong, they still might end up having to pull the courses.