By Michael Levenson and Steve Annear, Boston Globe
A national advocacy group filed federal lawsuits against Harvard and MIT on Thursday, accusing the universities of discriminating against people who are deaf and hard of hearing by failing to caption their vastly expanding array of online courses.“Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” said the lawsuits filed in US District Court in Massachusetts by the National Association of the Deaf. The class-action suits accuse the universities of violating the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act by denying people who are deaf and hard of hearing access to thousands of videos and audio recordings that the universities make available free to the public.
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