Legal Overview
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... related to disability,
and right at the beginning
I want to deal
with an issue
that is often of great
concern for faculty members,
and that is their
academic freedom.
There is nothing in the
laws related to disability
that should impact
your academic freedom.
Academic freedom is a
First Amendment right.
If you read what
Chronicle of Higher Ed
or Inside Higher Education
says about academic freedom
you're going to find
that it really is about
what you say
in the classroom
or what you say
in the online course
as a way of instructing the
content that you're teaching,
and we are not
talking about that.
Your content
is your content,
and we are not going to have
any effect or input on that.
What we are talking about is
whatever modality, whatever mode,
whatever container that you're
using to convey that content.
That is what we
need to be accessible.
And I'm going to be
talking about Section 508,
and how Section 508 relates
to creating accessible content.
So this is
civil rights law.
And so what we're
really talking about
is having all of your
students have the equal right
to have access to whatever
the content is that you're teaching.
So what are the
laws that apply here?
The first is the Americans
with Disabilities Act, the ADA,
which many of you
have probably heard of.
It governs facilities
in terms of parking spaces,
in terms of ramps, curb cuts,
elevators, all of that sort of thing.
Title II applies to us
as public institutions,
and it has been
around for many years.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973
is the other law that
I'm going to talk about,
and that is even
older than the ADA.
Most folks who are
not dealing with facilities
haven't really heard of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
but it has two sections that
apply to us in the colleges
that relate
to disability law.
The first
is Section 504.
Section 504 applies to us
because of federal funding.
Everyone who receives federal
funding at the collegial level
has Section 504 requirements.
It is basically why you have
a disability services office
on your campus, is to
deal with Section 504,
and to deal with the needs
of individuals with disabilities.
It's very focused on individuals,
both for staff and for faculty.
There's another section in
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and that is
Section 508.
Section 508 is very different,
we'll talk about that.
It applies
to infrastructure,
and it applies under
California State law.
But basically,
in a nutshell,
disability law is actually
part of civil rights law.
So the ADA,
as I mentioned,
Title II applies
to public facilities.
It is the
architectural standards
that most people
are very familiar with,
and that
is access.
Whenever you're talking
about infrastructure
you're talking
about access.
The ADA provides
access to facilities.
There's another
part, however,
which is the
Auxiliary Aids & Services part.
Our shorthand way of talking
about that is "accommodations".
The accommodations
are for individuals,
allowing individuals
to fully participate
in whatever activities and
education is available on campus.
So Section 504
and Section 508
I'm going to be
focusing on together
as a strategy for meeting your
legal obligations under the law.
Section 504
of the ADA,
in this area that we're
going to be talking about
with access to technology and
access to courses are very similar.
I'm going to
focus on Section 504
because it has a few more
teeth in terms of the law.
It actually has
pretty rigorous requirements
as well
as mandates,
and it
allows the ...