Miami University in Ohio last month became the latest institution to overhaul its accessibility policies for people with disabilities. Within a year and a half, students there will receive personalized accessibility plans and encounter course materials, learning platforms and websites that conform to accessibility standards.
The university agreed to the overhaul as part of a settlement with Aleeha Dudley, a blind student who — with the help of Disability Rights Ohio, a local advocacy group — in 2014 sued over a lack of accessible course materials and trained assistants. In 2015, Dudley gained another powerful ally: the U.S. Department of Justice.
Disability studies scholars and legal experts say lawsuits like Dudley’s against Miami represent a shift in activism, where high-profile cases help raise awareness about the challenges facing students in an increasingly digital world. More than two decades after the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 was signed into law, advocacy groups are pushing to clarify how it and other laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities apply to technology that at the time seemed like science fiction but now has become reality. At the same time, those and other groups are pushing for new legislation, keeping one eye on the upcoming process to rewrite the Higher Education Act.
Read more: Disability rights advocates shift strategies to ensure equal rights in the digital age