By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed
Miami University in Ohio last month became the latest institution to overhaul its accessibility policies for people with disabilities. Miami is far from the only university to face legal action over accessibility issues. In the last two years alone, several colleges and education companies — Atlantic Cape Community College, edX, Harvard University and the University of Phoenix, among others — have either been sued or settled complaints about inaccessible websites or content. . Lennard J. Davis, a prominent disability studies scholar based at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said those lawsuits highlight a trend of the last 10 years of accessibility lawsuits shifting from concerning physical to digital spaces. “The web and technology associated with sensory impairments are where it is at right now,” Davis said in an email. “The virtual and digital world has replaced the physical world as the locus for discrimination and barriers.”
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