MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-03-15 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout-NYLXS] Fire Judge Katherine A. Robertson
|
On 03/15/2017 11:41 AM, Ruben Safir wrote:
> On February 11, 2015, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and
> four deaf and hard of hearing individuals filed two federal class action
> lawsuits against Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology (MIT), charging that the schools discriminate against deaf
> and hard of hearing people by failing to caption the vast and varied
> array of online content they make available to the general public,
> including massive open online courses (MOOCs).
>
> The cases, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, assert that
> these universities violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
> Rehabilitation Act by denying deaf and hard of hearing people access to
> thousands of videos and audio tracks that each university makes publicly
> available, for free, on broad-ranging topics of general interest. These
> include, for example, campus talks by luminaries such as President
> Barack Obama and Microsoft founder Bill Gates; educational videos made
> by MIT students for use by K-12 students; “self-help” talks; entire
> semesters’-worth of courses; and regular podcasts such as the “HBR
> IdeaCast” by the Harvard Business Review. The universities boast that
> their content is available free to anyone with an Internet connection.
> Millions of people have visited the websites.
>
> The MIT Plaintiffs are represented by the NAD; the Civil Rights
> Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC); the Disability Rights
> Education and Defense Fund (DREDF); and The Disability Law Center (DLC).
> The Harvard Plaintiffs are represented by the same lawyers, with the
> exception of DREDF.
>
> Each university moved to stay the case against it until the Department
> of Justice issued promised regulations governing website accessibility
> or to simply dismiss the case. The Department of Justice filed
> statements of interest in both cases supporting plaintiffs’ position
> that the universities’ provision of free online video content to the
> public discriminates against Deaf and hard of hearing individuals by
> failing to provide equal access in the form of captions. In decisions
> issued on February 16, 2016, Magistrate Judge Katherine A. Robertson
> recommended denial of the universities’ motions in full and included
> excellent language affirming the digital communication rights of people
> who are Deaf or hard of hearing. The court issued a lengthy decision in
> the Harvard case and adopted the same reasoning in the MIT case.
>
> Key case documents:
>
> Harvard complaint
> MIT complaint
> DOJ Statement of Interest – Harvard
> DOJ Statement of Interest – MIT
> Report and Recommendation Recommending Denial of Harvard’s Motion to
> Dismiss/Stay
> Report and Recommendation Recommending Denial of MIT’s Motion to
> Dismiss/Stay
>
> For press coverage on the cases, see: The New York Times, Boston Globe,
> Reuters, Ability Magazine, FastCompany, UPI, ABC News, Boston Herald,
> The Huffington Post, The Verge, The Chronicle of Higher Education. and
> Harvard’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.
>
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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