DOJ demands Berkley make free online education materials accessible to disabled, Berkley planning to remove the materials as a result

[Axulus]

And am I too cynical to think this might be motivated, at least in part, by a desire to protecting bricks-and-mortar educational institutions against competition from free, online courses? After all, both K12 teachers and university faculty — whose jobs might eventually be threatened by the success of online education — are the among the most loyal of the Democratic Party base.

How would extending this already free material to the remaining small segment of the potential student population protect jobs?

This action makes it much more expensive to provide free material of any kind, so less of it will be available and the existing material is far more likely to be pulled.

 

[Axulus]

Someone filing a compliant doesn't mean the DOJ is obligated to file a lawsuit over it, that is their choice. They are making the claim that the ADA requires that UC Berekley make its free online materials "fully accessible to individuals with hearing, visual or manual disabilities" and are threatening to file a lawsuit to enforce it.

Are you seriously still proposing a secret conspiracy between teacher unions and the DOJ (why would they conspire together? And you realize that Berkeley ALREDY IS a brick and mortar educational institution right?) to shut down free information on the internet rolleyes: as if free information wasn't already available everywhere in the information age) as a more likely scenario than the legitimate complaint that the website published by a quazi-governmental entity doesn't work for disabled people? And that MIGHT be illegal according to the ADA?

I think it shouldn't be illegal, but the ADA was written in the early 90's before politicians were cognizant the internet. Laws need to be reviewed from time to time as the societies that use them change. It might be time to review this one but that won't happen until it is proven to have failed in some way.

I'm not saying my proposal is true - just saying that the lawsuit threat is a choice that the DOJ is making under what seems like a very peculiar interpretation of the law.

 

[ronburgundy]

The educational facility accepts public money under certain terms. If those terms include that any material they offer as educational content must be accessible in the way the DoJ is asserting, then they have to do that for all of their content.
Besides simply taking down the 'non-compliant' content there is another option. They can 'gift' the content to an organization that does not take public money, under terms that the receiving organization maintains the online access to it. Then, the educational facility is no longer offering that free content, but the content is still available to the public (although it may find itself covered in Ads and other click-bait).

Not a great option since the DOJ would likely prohibit any reference/credit to UB or the UB employees who spent many years developing the materials. That would severly undercut the institutional benefit and thus motive of public institutions to help develop these highly beneficially public resources, thus harming everyone in the long run (as these kinds of force equality of outcome policies always do).

There is a 4th option. Rational people can wrest control of and change these rule from the mentally incompetent ideologues with no sincere regard for the general public welfare.

In some instances, publicly financed works that greatly benefit 98% of the population cannot be completely retooled to also benefit the other 2% without being cost prohibitive. Rational and moral adults realize this and oppose inflexible dogmatic absolutist laws.
Also, the institution themselves should not be responsible for the added cost. That should come from a separate Federal pool of funds designated for increasing disability access to various public works funded by other more project specific pools of money.

This would allow us to make more rational decisions about where and how those funds are spent and keep track of how much is being spent relative to the spending on the more general public works.

 

[EricK]

This sounds unreasonable. Public libraries must have wheelchair ramps, sure. But I don't think there is any requirement that every book they stock must be offered in a medium convenient for the visually impaired. Otherwise almost EVERY library in the country would be in violation of the ADA. Similarly, I don't see why offering SOME free educational materials online would violate the ADA.

I think the library comparison raises a far more important point - and shows how laws about the physical world shouldn't necessarily apply online.

There is a finite amount of physical space in any town. There are going to be a finite number of libraries - possibly only one. It makes sense to have these as accessible as possible, as an inaccessible library takes up valuable public space, and people who can't access it are permanently denied use of that value, and the existence of that library will likely prevent any other libraries from opening in the vicinity.

But there is, to all intents and purposes, no limit to the space online. An online repository of material that is not 100% accessible does not take any online space away. It does not limit any future potential for what they may be able to access, even in the short term.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, this is kind of like saying that universities shouldn't be allowed to have documentary footage from WWII because it's not all closed captioned for the hearing impaired. While making everything as accessible as possible is a noble goal and they should look into ways for making that sort of thing viable for this content, stopping it from being available until that's done isn't a good option.

 

[zorq]

This sounds unreasonable. Public libraries must have wheelchair ramps, sure. But I don't think there is any requirement that every book they stock must be offered in a medium convenient for the visually impaired. Otherwise almost EVERY library in the country would be in violation of the ADA. Similarly, I don't see why offering SOME free educational materials online would violate the ADA.

I think the library comparison raises a far more important point - and shows how laws about the physical world shouldn't necessarily apply online.

There is a finite amount of physical space in any town. There are going to be a finite number of libraries - possibly only one. It makes sense to have these as accessible as possible, as an inaccessible library takes up valuable public space, and people who can't access it are permanently denied use of that value, and the existence of that library will likely prevent any other libraries from opening in the vicinity.

But there is, to all intents and purposes, no limit to the space online. An online repository of material that is not 100% accessible does not take any online space away. It does not limit any future potential for what they may be able to access, even in the short term.

So you think the only reason the Braille/Audiobook section in public libraries isn't the same size as the inked paper section is because of physical space restrictions? I don't think so. Libraries mostly stock comercially published material and most of that is published in small print ink. Converting published work into more accessible formats is expensive. Public libraries just don't have the funds to make everything accessible. But they are allowed to offer materials that disabled people can't access anyway.

I think the main difference between a library and Berkeley is that Berkeley is both the producer and distributor of the materials in question. These materials, by the way, are mostly just video recorded lectures uploaded to the internet that exist mostly, from Berkeley's perspective, to show off the quality of their professors. I think they are more advertisement for prospective students than public service. But that's my opinion.

Anyway, because Berkeley is the publisher and distributor of inaccessible materials I think the DOJ may be drawing a distinction between libraries and Online content that isn't actually distinct. It still costs a lot of money to make information accessible for the impaired. The fact that Berkeley produces the material doesn't change the distribution model of free material available to the public. And just because libraries DON'T typically make ALL their materials accessible does not mean that they CAN'T. Does the ADA actually imply that libraries should be offering ALL their materials in accessible formats? Maybe, that's up to the courts.

If all materials produced by government or quazi-governmental agencies must always be completely accessible to people with any disability that could be a very expensive rabbit hold to traverse. Must every billboard along the highway offer a braille plaque next to it? Must every student concert publish visually symbolic versions of their music at the same time? Must a decorative garden planted in a public park offer some representation of that beauty to the blind? Does every local government report, log, ledger, or transcript need to be filed along with more accessible versions?

It isn't practical to make ALL information accessible. It sucks for the disabled. It's not fair. But accommodating EVERYTHING for the disabled is ridiculous.

TLDR: There is too much information in the universe to expect all of it to be accessible to people with disabilities.

 

[barbos]

yes, you described downloading. But not all education is downloading, some involves thinking.

So what? Code and insert that as well. It's nothing but patterns of electrical signals.

It will work, but you will have a bunch of human-robots who "think" identically.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So what? Code and insert that as well. It's nothing but patterns of electrical signals.

It will work, but you will have a bunch of human-robots who "think" identically.

No you won't. That's like saying that if you send everybody to the same driving school, they'll all drive identically. They'll learn all the same skills and the same way to handle themselves in various situations, but they'll all bring their own thoughts, opinions, biases and motivations to the task and all handle themselves on the road differently as a result, despite having the same training on how to do it.

 

[barbos]

It will work, but you will have a bunch of human-robots who "think" identically.

No you won't. That's like saying that if you send everybody to the same driving school, they'll all drive identically.

That's nothing like that. They learn normal way in driving schools. What you suggested is quite literally downloading.

They'll learn all the same skills and the same way to handle themselves in various situations, but they'll all bring their own thoughts, opinions, biases and motivations to the task and all handle themselves on the road differently as a result, despite having the same training on how to do it.

That's not what you suggested.
there is learning which is a long process which involves a lot of thinking and self-rearranging of all data. And then there is downloading which skips all that and simply put the same thing in brains.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No you won't. That's like saying that if you send everybody to the same driving school, they'll all drive identically.

That's nothing like that. They learn normal way in driving schools. What you suggested is quite literally downloading.

They'll learn all the same skills and the same way to handle themselves in various situations, but they'll all bring their own thoughts, opinions, biases and motivations to the task and all handle themselves on the road differently as a result, despite having the same training on how to do it.

That's not what you suggested.

Then you completely misunderstood what I suggested. Now that I've corrected your understanding of what I was saying, I guess there's not a point of contention between us on this issue and we don't need to argue back and forth about how pedantic the other one of us is.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Are you seriously still proposing a secret conspiracy between teacher unions and the DOJ (why would they conspire together? And you realize that Berkeley ALREDY IS a brick and mortar educational institution right?) to shut down free information on the internet rolleyes: as if free information wasn't already available everywhere in the information age) as a more likely scenario than the legitimate complaint that the website published by a quazi-governmental entity doesn't work for disabled people? And that MIGHT be illegal according to the ADA?

I think it shouldn't be illegal, but the ADA was written in the early 90's before politicians were cognizant the internet. Laws need to be reviewed from time to time as the societies that use them change. It might be time to review this one but that won't happen until it is proven to have failed in some way.

I'm not saying my proposal is true - just saying that the lawsuit threat is a choice that the DOJ is making under what seems like a very peculiar interpretation of the law.

It does have to do with access, but this doesn't mean that Berkley can't hand over these lectures to an outside organization that does not receive federal funding.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

TLDR: There is too much information in the universe to expect all of it to be accessible to people with disabilities.

I dug it up: Undue hardship:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12111

(10) Undue hardship
(A) In general
The term “undue hardship” means an action requiring significant difficulty or expense, when considered in light of the factors set forth in subparagraph (B).
(B) Factors to be consideredIn determining whether an accommodation would impose an undue hardship on a covered entity, factors to be considered include—
(i) the nature and cost of the accommodation needed under this chapter;
(ii) the overall financial resources of the facility or facilities involved in the provision of the reasonable accommodation; the number of persons employed at such facility; the effect on expenses and resources, or the impact otherwise of such accommodation upon the operation of the facility;
(iii) the overall financial resources of the covered entity; the overall size of the business of a covered entity with respect to the number of its employees; the number, type, and location of its facilities; and
(iv) the type of operation or operations of the covered entity, including the composition, structure, and functions of the workforce of such entity; the geographic separateness, administrative, or fiscal relationship of the facility or facilities in question to the covered entity.

 

[barbos]

That's nothing like that. They learn normal way in driving schools. What you suggested is quite literally downloading.

They'll learn all the same skills and the same way to handle themselves in various situations, but they'll all bring their own thoughts, opinions, biases and motivations to the task and all handle themselves on the road differently as a result, despite having the same training on how to do it.

That's not what you suggested.

Then you completely misunderstood what I suggested. Now that I've corrected your understanding of what I was saying, I guess there's not a point of contention between us on this issue and we don't need to argue back and forth about how pedantic the other one of us is.

You have not corrected my understanding, you simply forgot what you suggested. Let me remind you what you said:

I'm looking forward to Matrix-style education where we can just plug the information directly into our brain and become experts in the subject matter after just a few seconds.

You can't "learn" in few seconds, that's physically impossible. People can't think that fast, it takes hours and days to grow new connections in the brain normal way (through thinking)

Ya, what's the difference? You read a book or attend a lecture and update the neural connections in your brain to hold new information - or you just update the neural connections in your brain to hold new information. Education does nothing except get you to an end state. Whatever method you use to arrive at that end state still has you at the same end state.

The end state is different and unique for every individual.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Dude, I don't know who it is that you're talking to, but it's not me.

 

[barbos]

Dude, I don't know who it is that you're talking to, but it's not me.

Someone must have reprogrammed you in seconds, cause it WAS you (look at page 2 of this thread)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Dude, I don't know who it is that you're talking to, but it's not me.

Someone must have reprogrammed you in seconds, cause it WAS you (look at page 2 of this thread)

Yes, I know what I wrote. It's your comprehension of what I wrote which makes your replies unrelated to the posts.

 

[barbos]

Someone must have reprogrammed you in seconds, cause it WAS you (look at page 2 of this thread)

Yes, I know what I wrote. It's your comprehension of what I wrote which makes your replies unrelated to the posts.

It's not me, it's you.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

It has to be made accessible to ALL, regardless of disabilities.

But these are courses from the same universities. They are essentially recorded lectures. And it is usually very basic, introductory and fairly entertaining courses. Real courses with actual math are much harder to convert into this form.
But I do see the future where AI can replace boring part of teaching, eventually.

I'm looking forward to Matrix-style education where we can just plug the information directly into our brain and become experts in the subject matter after just a few seconds.

No, that would violate ADA guidelines, because it would discriminate against people who lack a functioning brain to plug into, like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump voters.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The educational facility accepts public money under certain terms. If those terms include that any material they offer as educational content must be accessible in the way the DoJ is asserting, then they have to do that for all of their content.
Besides simply taking down the 'non-compliant' content there is another option. They can 'gift' the content to an organization that does not take public money, under terms that the receiving organization maintains the online access to it. Then, the educational facility is no longer offering that free content, but the content is still available to the public (although it may find itself covered in Ads and other click-bait).

Publicly funded or not, if it is publicly accessible are they not obligated to be in compliance?